FX.co ★ EUR/USD. Forecast for September 3, 2012

It is a day off in the USA today. Indeed, the US markets deserve this holiday: Ben Bernanke gave an expected hint about the following QE. As the result, the Dow Jones index grew 0.69%, the European Stoxx600 gained 0.48%, gold was up 2.14%, oil lifted 2.05%, and the euro accumulated 70 points.
Macroeconomic data from Europe was poor: the unemployment rate expanded by 0.1% from 11.2% up to 11.3%. The retail sales fell seasonally unadjusted 0.9% in Germany against the forecast of 0.2% expansion. Manufacturing orders demonstrated growth of 2.8% in the USA against expected 1.1%. It is obvious that American economy is in much better condition than the European one. China was showing really weak results during the last two month, but the Chinese government quickly announced about expansionary actions. Thus, the situation is getting better, though the pace of improvement is still slow. On the other hand, the Fed does not favor such situation.
Today the head of the ECB will give a speech. Probably, he will welcome the investors’ optimism, although, while the legitimacy of the ESM is undecided, he cannot offer any concrete measures.
At 12:00 Moscow time the Eurozone PMI index for August is expected. The revised data will likely be the same – 43.3.
Target for growth is placed at 1.2636.