Ella 
In Asia on Thursday, EUR/USD held steady near 1.0900, slightly pulling back from the six-week high of 1.0915 hit in the previous trading day, after Federal Reserve Chairman Powell made dovish remarks while testifying before the House Financial Services Committee. The European Central Bank will announce its monetary policy decision later in the day.
The ECB is expected to keep its deposit facility rate unchanged at 4.0%, the fourth consecutive ECB meeting. At the same time as this decision is released, the European Central Bank will also release its latest economic forecasts. Investors will pay close attention to ECB President Christine Lagarde’s speech at the post-meeting press conference to understand the central bank’s monetary policy stance and economic outlook.
Additionally, the euro may have been provided some support by Eurozone retail sales data released on Wednesday, which was weaker than expected. Eurozone retail sales continued to contract at an annual rate of 1% in January, the European Union’s statistics office (Eurostat) reported, missing expectations for a 1.3% decline. This is another decline after recording -0.5% in December. However, retail sales improved slightly on the month, rising 0.1% as expected, compared with -0.6% previously.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in his semi-annual monetary policy report that the U.S. central bank is prepared to lower borrowing costs “at some point this year.” However, the recent escalation of the banking crisis in the U.S. region may accelerate this timeline. Investors are eagerly awaiting more policy signals from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday.
The U.S. dollar index (DXY) is facing losses, weighed down primarily by falling U.S. Treasury yields. Weak U.S. employment data added to downward pressure on the dollar. The U.S. ADP employment change report for February was 140,000, slightly below expectations of 150,000, but up from the previous reading of 111,000. In addition, U.S. JOLTs job openings fell to 8.863 million in January from 9.026 million in December, lower than the expected value of 8.9 million. Next, the market focus will be on Friday’s non-farm payrolls report (NFP).
