n a note to clients today, Bank of America Merrill Lynch outlines its latest comprehensive outlook for EUR/USD including its themes, forecasts, and risks.
Themes: FED, ECB, Greece:
"The Greek Referendum will drive headlines for the near-term. We believe that divergence of monetary policies is a more powerful EUR driver than Greek risks. In this context, the timing of the first Fed rate hike (September is our call) and the ECB’s tone (the market misread the ECB’s message to get used to volatility) are more important for the euro than Greek headlines. Whilst Greek headlines and deadlines are clearly urgent, and the market implications in our view both important and not priced in the short-run, ultimately the evolution of monetary policy is in our mind more important," BofA argues.
"We remain bearish EUR/USD, but the uncertainty around the Fed is not bolstering our conviction levels. The euro’s reaction to Greek headlines has been puzzling, sometimes weakening in response to positive headlines for a deal. In part, this is because the USD is oversold. It can also be that the market does not believe that a deal will fully address Grexit risks, which in turn suggests that the ECB is likely to keep QE to be able to address periphery risks and push against a rates sell-off. This could explain the negative correlation between European equities and the Euro recently. Our view remains that tail risks in Greece are negative for the Euro," BofA adds