EUR/USD oscillates around 1.0260 ahead of Eurozone Retail Sales and Fed minutes

• EUR/USD is juggling in a 1.2055-1.2071 range as investors await Fed minutes and eurozone Retail Sales.
• The elevation of rates by 75 bps in June by the Fed makes Wednesday’s Fed minutes more crucial.
• An outperformance is expected from the eurozone Retail Sales.

The EUR/USD pair is displaying back and forth moves in a narrow range of 1.2055-1.0271 in the Asian session. The asset is witnessing range-bound moves as investors are awaiting the release of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) minutes and the eurozone Retail Sales.

On Tuesday, the shared currency bulls witnessed a perpendicular fall after violating the crucial support of 1.0365. Accelerating recession fears underpinned the greenback and the risk-perceived currencies went south swiftly. Going forward, the eurozone Retail Sales will remain in focus. A preliminary estimate for the economic data is 5.4% on an annual basis vs. 3.9% reported earlier. Also, the quarterly data is seen higher at 0.4% against the former release of -1.3%.

In today’s session, the FOMC minutes are critical to watch.  As usual, the Fed minutes will display the ideology behind the interest rate decision taken in prior monetary policy meeting. While this time the Fed minutes hold more importance. Fed chair Jerome Powell elevated its interest rate by 75 basis points (bps) for the first time in the past 28 years which states the most hawkish tone and reveals that the inflation ghost is for real. Also, it may provide meaningful guidance for the July meeting.

Apart from that, the US ISM Services PMI data will be of key importance. As per the market consensus, the economic data will slip to 54.5 from the prior release of 55.9.