EUR/USD volatility near 5% as pair remains range-bound – ING

EUR/USD continues to trade with muted volatility near 5%, with the pair expected to remain range-bound as investors fund carry trades out of the Euro (EUR) rather than the more volatile Japanese Yen (JPY), ING's FX analyst Chris Turner notes.

Investors favor Euro for low-cost carry trades

"One-month traded EUR/USD volatility continues to languish near 5%. And most are concluding that EUR/USD looks pretty range-bound in the near term. With volatility low, and high-yield and emerging market currencies in demand, it seems investors are preferring to fund carry trades out of the Euro at a cost of just 2.00% (using the one-month implied yield) rather than dollars at around 3.55%."

"Funding carry out of the Euro may well be seen as less risky than funding out of the yen, where USD/JPY one-month volatility trades at 8.5% and the Bank of Japan could come in any day now and briefly drive USD/JPY 2-3% lower."

"The Eurozone data calendar looks bare and EUR/USD could drift towards 1.1555/65 without much fanfare."