EUR/USD displays volatility contraction, hovers around 1.0170 ahead of US NFP data

• EUR/USD is displaying back and forth moves around 1.0170 as investors await US jobs data.
• The US NFP is likely to land at 250k vs. 372k reported earlier.
• Vulnerable Eurozone Retail Sales data has been ignored by market participants.

The EUR/USD pair is auctioning in a minute range of 1.0155-1.0176 as investors are shifting their focus to the US Nonfarm payrolls (NFP), which will release on Friday. Also, the US dollar index (DXY) is behaving like a nightmare for short-term investors due to its nasty moves.

Pre-anxiety of the US NFP will keep the market participants on the tenterhooks. As per the market forecasts, the US NFP data will display a vulnerable performance. Investors are seeing 250k additional jobs created by the US economy in July, much lower than June’s print of 372k.

Thanks to the policy tightening measures by the Federal Reserve (Fed), which have forced the corporate players to inculcate more filters on investment selection and its consequences have forced them to halt their recruitment process for this year.

Meanwhile, the US dollar index (DXY) has turned topsy-turvy as Fed policymakers have trimmed the odds of policy tightening in CY2023. Fed President Neel Kashkari highlighted the fact that the Fed was too slow to hike interest rates in 2021. Also, added that Fed is laser-focused on bringing inflation down, therefore it will exploit its all weapons to control inflation. Therefore, a rate hike scenario in CY2023 is unlikely.

On the eurozone front, investors have ignored the vulnerable Retail Sales data. The economic data landed at -3.7%, lower than the expectations of -1.7% and the prior release of 0.4%. Price pressures are sky-rocketing, therefore the economic data should have an uptick. However, a slump in the same indicates that the overall demand is extremely poor.