• EUR/USD moves higher to 1.0770 as the US Dollar corrects, and the preliminary Eurozone service inflation for June remains sticky.
• The US Dollar declines as Fed’s Powell remains confident that disinflation has resumed.
• Headline Eurozone HICP decelerated expectedly, while the core figure grew steadily year-on-year.

EUR/USD jumps higher to near 1.0770 in Wednesday’s European session after a strong recovery from the round-level support of 1.0700 on Tuesday. The major currency pair extends its recovery as sticky preliminary Eurozone service inflation for June deepens fears of price pressures remaining elevated for a longer period. 

Also, other components of the preliminary Eurozone Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) report showed that headline inflation decelerated expectedly to 2.5% from May’s reading of 2.6%. In the same period, the core HICP that excludes volatile items rose at a steady pace of 2.9%, and remained higher than estimates of 2.8%. The overall data fails to provide any clarity on where price pressures are heading and kept the European Central Bank’s (ECB) interest-rate outlook uncertain.

However, ECB President Christine Lagarde said at the ECB Forum on Central Banking that inflation is moving in the right direction, and the central bank is very advanced in the disinflation path.

On the interest rate outlook, ECB policymaker and Ireland’s Central Bank Governor Gabriel Makhlouf said he is comfortable with one more rate cut this year but not with market expectations of two. However, he didn’t rule out the possibility.

On the political front, the centralist alliance and the left wing of the European Union’s (EU) second-largest nation withdrew more than 200 candidates from Sunday’s parliamentary elections in an attempt to thwart the far right from gaining an absolute majority.