EUR/JPY: Trade war, UK election favor risk-off with eyes on ECB

• EUR/JPY slips from weekly high amid fresh risk aversion wave.
• Challenges to the US-China trade relations, UK election heavy the risk tone.
• German inflation, Eurozone Industrial Production will offer intermediate moves ahead of the ECB.

EUR/JPY steps back from the weekly high to 120.82 on early Thursday. Fresh risk aversion seems to drag the quote ahead of the key events.

Trade stalemate between the United States (US) and China keeps global traders on the edge as Trump administration is firm about December 15 tariffs on China unless getting a phase-one by then. On the other hand, China keeps its head high and criticizes the US behavior while demanding cancellation of upcoming tariff to continue the trade talks. The latest headlines from Reuters suggest that the US President Donald Trump will meet his trade advisers today to decide on tariffs.

Elsewhere, the United Kingdom (UK) is heading for a general election starting from 07:00 GMT to 22:00 GMT on Thursday. Even if all the polls keep the ruling Conservative Party at the top, a clear majority in the parliament is in doubt and keeps investors worried.

The pair earlier benefited from the broad US dollar (USD) weakness and a resultant Euro (EUR) gains after the US Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell said that they would have to see significant, persistent move up in inflation to hike rates.

Moving on, monetary policy meeting by the European Central Bank (ECB) will be important as it will be the first appearance of Christine Lagarde as the President. The ECB isn’t expected to offer any monetary policy change but might reiterate the need for fiscal support.

Other than the benchmark events, German inflation and Eurozone Industrial Production are likely additionally burden on the market watchers.

Technical Analysis

Prices are gradually rising towards a 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) level of 121.36 unless providing a daily close below 50-day SMA level of 120.15.