The EUR/USD is trading just north of the 1.1700 major technical level ahead of a Tuesday that will see market focus shift to upcoming US events with a thin calendar slated for the European session. There were some relevant macroeconomic news coming from both shores of the Atlantic, although they had little saying on price action. In the EU, the goods trade balance surplus shrunk in May to €16.5B amid a fall in exports combined with an increase in imports. The US released June retail sales, which...

Euro rises as US Dollar eases on the day of Trump-Putin meeting. The risk sentiment eased on Monday with the Euro trading slightly higher on Monday against the US Dollar at around 1.1700 before the high profile Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki. After hitting its best level since early July, the US Dollar witnessed some profit-taking on Friday following a setback from import prices and consumer confidence data.

On Friday, the most anticipated macro-economic news release were the non-farm employment change and the unemployment rate. The NFP rose by 213k in the previous month, while the consensus estimate was creation of 195k jobs. The jobless rate came with an unexpected result where it rose to 4.0% from 3.8%, thus missed the expectation that it would remain at the same level, while wage inflation grew 2.7% on an annualized basis in June.

Last week ended with the publication of disappointing NFP jobs numbers from the USA; coming in at 148k, versus expectations of circa 190k. A peculiar number suggesting that retailers, working on ever tightening margins, laid off employees earlier than expected during the Xmas season. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.1%, whilst the underemployment rate, which some analysts cite as the more relevant and true reflection of the USA unemployment situation, crept up to 8.1%. Another metri...