Preparing for the NFP, ECB results & Fed

Monetary policy decisions. The announcement of the ECB’s decision on the parameters of monetary policy in the euro area was the main event. As expected, no changes followed. The most important thing, as usual, was concentrated in the comments of the Head of the ECB, Mario Draghi. The economic growth forecasts worsened again (the GDP growth rate for 2020 was lowered from 1.6% to 1.4%). In addition, according to Draghi, the ECB is serious about a return to quantitative easing and lower rates. Buying euros after such a speech of the head of the ECB is not worth it, even if you really want to sell a dollar.

And today we want to sell the dollar more than ever. In yesterday's review, we have already noted that the figures for the number of jobs in private US companies in May were just awful. + 27K - we have not seen such figures since the global financial crisis. After publishing NFP a couple of times over the past few years, frankly, weak numbers, from time to time, have been shown. But not in the case of data from ADP. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which the data from ADP showed + 27K with the forecast of 180K, and the figures for the NFP come out near + 185K. The level of correlation between these indicators is low, and the methodology for calculating indicators differs, but at the same time, they characterize the same market in the same coordinate system.

So today we are waiting for the NFP to lower its forecast. By lower we mean marks + 100K and below. The figure in the range of 30-50K will not surprise us much. But the markets definitely will, provoking massive dollar sales on the entire spectrum of the foreign exchange market. We recommend not waiting for the official figures to be realized, but selling the dollar, since it might be too late.

Let us explain why exactly today the weak NFP data is so critical for the dollar. The fact is that the markets are increasingly being discounted for the rate decrease by the Fed in 2019.

In particular, the probability that the rate by the end of 2019 will be unchanged is less than 2%. Accordingly, with a 98% probability, it can be argued that the rate in 2019 will be lowered. There is almost a 90% chance that the rate will be reduced twice. At the same time, more than 50% of traders believe that the rate will be reduced 3 times. Plus there is another 17% chance that the rate will be reduced 4 times (!). Note that the probability of this event did not exceed 4% last week. That is, the probability increased by more than 4 times (!).in less than a week.

Weak NFP Data will provoke a slowdown and problems in the US economy, but also the Fed will lower rates aggressively. Perhaps at the next meeting in mid-June. Perhaps not by 0.25%, but by 0.5%.

Our positions today without any changes: we will continue to look for points for sales of the US dollar, sales of oil and the Russian ruble, as well as buying of gold and the Japanese yen.