EUR/USD – Selling The Fact? Two Opinions

Emmanuel Macron was elected President and received two-thirds of the vote. This was mostly priced in. Will we now see a selloff of the euro?

Here is their view, courtesy of eFXnews:

Macron Wins: EUR/USD: ‘Buy The Rumor, Sell The Fact’ – Barclays

Barclays Capital FX Strategy Research argues that the victory of Emmanuel Macron carries the risk of a ‘buy the rumor, sell the fact’ for EUR/USD. 

Such a risk, according to Barclays, implies a down-move in EUR/USD, given the current long EUR pre-positioning and given that the EUR political-risk premium was reduced significantly by the “benign” first round outcome.

In line with this view, Barclays expects EUR/USD to depreciate mildly over the remainder of this year, as monetary policy divergence and some residual political-risk premia weigh on the common currency.

Barclays targets EUR/USD at 1.09 by the end of Q2, and at 1.06 by the end Q3. 

EUR/USD is trading circa 1.0970 as of writing.

Macron Wins: Profit-Taking On EUR Longs; What’s The Trade? – SocGen

Societe Generale FX Strategy Research argues that as Emmanuel Macron victory in the French election was not a ‘surprise, there is a risk of profit taking in EUR long positions in the short-term.

In particular, SocGen notes the EUR has already made sizeable gains going into the second round of the French Presidential election close to its highest level (in trade-weighted terms) since the US Presidential election in November.

“Emmanuel Macron was already 80% priced-in so there likely will be a danger in the near term. We see profit-taking on long euro positions. The EUR/USD in particular appears to have risen further in recent days than is consistent with the moves we’ve seen on bond yields,” SocGen argues.

Looking further ahead however, SocGen expects EUR to benefit on the reduction in political uncertainty which should allow the focus to shift back to the prospect of a normalization of ECB policy.