EUR/USD ducks away from pressures through parity, but bulls remain in play

• EUR/USD bulls are under pressure around psychological resistance. 
• EUR/USD bulls eye a break above 1.0030 while above 0.9950.

EUR/USD trades parity at the time of writing, higher by 0.35% on the day thus far and hugging the psychological level while beaten down US stocks attempt to firm up in midday trade. The single currency has travelled between 0.9914 and 1.0029 so far.

A the start of the week, the dollar touched a fresh 20-year high fuelled by hawkish rhetoric by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell last week although the euro has held its own on the back of growing expectations for European Central Bank (ECB) rate hikes. European Central Bank board member Isabel Schnabel said over the weekend that central banks must act forcefully to combat inflation, even if that drags their economies into a recession.

“Even if we enter a recession, we have little choice but to continue the normalization path,” Schnabel told the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. 

At the same conference, Powell reinforced that hawkish bias saying that the Fed will raise rates as high as needed to restrict growth, and would keep them there "for some time" to bring down inflation that is running at more than three times the Fed's 2% goal. This has seen the money markets ramping up bets for a more aggressive rate hike from the central bank in September, with the chances of a 75 basis point hike now seen around 70%, fuelling the greenback in the main. US Treasury yields have consequently seen the two-year bond yields extend to a 15-year high at near3.49%.

EUR/USD technical analysis

The price is consolidating the prior bearish trend at the Gartley's endpoint with a focus on the upside while above 0.9900.

Zooming in the euro is being pressured to the potentially firm support, with the next bullish objective being a break above 1.0030. On the downside, the bears could be in the clear on a break of 0.9950.