EURUSD July 31: Digesting the Post-FOMC Breakout Into a Month-End Data Pairing | Session Prep

Yesterday's call: Neutral/Wait, led by a 40%-weighted PCE-led dollar-unwind scenario — partial hit. The lead scenario fired cleanly (held break above 1.1475/1.1482, close 1.15302, +75 pips), but the Neutral/Wait lean sat out a move its own top scenario had already earned.

Session Card

Day type call: Range. Friday is digestion after two consecutive elevated-volatility trend days (Wednesday's FOMC surprise, Thursday's GDP/Core PCE resolution); no tier-1 calendar event sits inside today's session, only a tier-2 pairing (Eurozone flash HICP, US Employment Cost Index) that should act as volatility windows within the range rather than a fresh trend catalyst on its own.
Lean: Neutral / Wait. The lead scenario (continuation) is weighted 45% — below the standard's 55% combined-weight bar for a directional call.
Lead scenario + weight: Dollar-unwind continuation / EUR strength extends, 45%.
Key invalidation: A held H1 close above 1.1536 confirms continuation toward the 1.1560-1.1600 zone; a held H1 close below 1.1482, and especially 1.1475, reopens the pre-breakout range.
No-trade windows: 30 minutes either side of the Eurozone flash HICP release in the European morning, and 12:00-13:00 UTC around the 12:30 UTC US Employment Cost Index print.
ATR(14): Carried forward at roughly 0.00550 (55 pips) from Thursday's confirmed daily figure — an elevated regime versus this pair's typical ~35-pip H4 ATR ceiling; today's live intraday series was not independently re-fetched (see Key Levels), so treat this as an approximate anchor, not a re-verified one.
What's different today: it is month-end, adding WM/Reuters fix-related flow risk around 15:00-16:00 UTC that can produce moves unrelated to the day's fundamental drivers.

Scenario Map

The decision point is the tier-2 data pairing — the Eurozone flash HICP in the European morning and the US Employment Cost Index at 12:30 UTC — rather than a single level, since both prints bear directly on the two halves of today's rate-differential story (ECB hike case vs Fed wage-growth read).

Prob

45%

Dollar-unwind continuation / EUR strength

Trigger: Eurozone flash HICP prints at or above the ~2.8%/2.5% consensus and/or US ECI confirms cooling wage growth, extending the post-FOMC dollar-unwind
Path & target: Held break above 1.1536 (Thursday's high) → 1.1560-1.1600
Invalidation: H1 close back below 1.1500
Base rate: priors — rate-decision HOLD favors trend continuation, pullback continuation lifts to ~52-58%

Prob

35%

Range / no clean resolution

Trigger: Both prints land close to consensus, or send modest/conflicting signals that cancel out
Path & target: Price oscillates roughly 1.1482-1.1536 through the NY afternoon; no decisive held break of either edge
Invalidation: A clean, displaced H1 close beyond either edge, pulling forward one of the other branches
Base rate: priors — inline tier-2 prints move price only on genuine surprise; range is the default day type absent an overriding catalyst

Prob

20%

Hawkish-repricing reversal

Trigger: US ECI surprises meaningfully hot (wage-cost reacceleration) reviving the hawkish Fed case Wednesday's dovish hold appeared to bury, and/or the Eurozone flash HICP surprises cooler than consensus, undercutting the ECB September-hike case
Path & target: Held break below 1.1482/1.1475 → pullback toward 1.1424, with 1.1400 in view on a genuine surprise
Invalidation: H1 close back above 1.1500
Base rate: No base rate — a tier-2-driven reversal is event-dependent, not a setup in the technical playbook library

The continuation branch leads because the drivers behind it are unusually aligned today (dovish Fed, cooling PCE, and now a genuine EUR-positive growth surprise from Thursday's Eurozone GDP beat), but it stays capped well below the standard's 60% ceiling because today's catalysts are tier-2, not tier-1, and the pair has already run two elevated sessions without a confirmed break of Thursday's high.

Key Levels

Live intraday candle data for Friday's session was not independently fetched — the Cortiq/MT5 feed was unavailable in this run. The confirmed anchor is Thursday's verified session close (1.15302, matching the independently-confirmed MetaTrader 5 daily bar referenced in Thursday's review, session high 1.15364). The current print (~1.1517) is a publicly-sourced quote, not an MT5 tick-confirmed price — treat it as the best-available anchor, not tick-perfect, until a live feed is restored intraday. Distances use Thursday's confirmed ATR(14, D1) of 0.00550 (55 pips), carried forward as approximate.

Level

TypeResistance (round number, beyond current range)

1.1600

Origin: Round number, well beyond Thursday's confirmed structure
Distance (H4 ATR): ~1.5x above
Expected Reaction: Stretch/sweep target only, not a base-case level for today

Level

TypeResistance (fresh swing high)

1.15364

Origin: Thursday's post-GDP/PCE session high
Distance (H4 ATR): ~0.35x above
Expected Reaction: First reaction point on any renewed push higher

Level

TypeCurrent price (publicly-sourced, not MT5-confirmed)

~1.1517

Origin: Friday's opening digestion, down modestly from Thursday's close
Distance (H4 ATR): –
Expected Reaction: –

Level

TypeSupport (flipped)

1.1500

Origin: Thursday's close-basis breakout level, first daily close above it in the recent range
Distance (H4 ATR): ~0.31x below
Expected Reaction: A hold keeps the breakout thesis alive; loss opens the former supply zone below

Level

TypeSupport (flipped)

1.1482

Origin: Upper edge of the former mid-July unmitigated supply zone, cleared and held on a closing basis Thursday
Distance (H4 ATR): ~0.64x below
Expected Reaction: Loss here would be the first structural crack in the breakout

Level

TypeSupport (flipped)

1.1475

Origin: External technical resistance from earlier in the week, now the second line of the flipped zone
Distance (H4 ATR): ~0.76x below
Expected Reaction: A held break back below argues the breakout has failed

Level

TypeSupport

1.1424

Origin: Twice-defended pre-FOMC shelf, tested and held during Thursday's pre-print compression
Distance (H4 ATR): ~1.69x below
Expected Reaction: A hold here still keeps the broader thesis intact; loss reopens the multi-week range

Level

TypeSupport (round number, contested)

1.1400

Origin: Wicked through repeatedly earlier in the week without a clean break
Distance (H4 ATR): ~2.13x below
Expected Reaction: Deeper pullback target; a break here would erase most of the post-FOMC gain

Driver Stack

Short-rate differential expectations (Fed vs ECB) — agree. Unlike Thursday's internal split, today's evidence largely points one way: Wednesday's dovish Fed hold, Thursday's cooling Core PCE, and Thursday's Eurozone Q2 GDP beat (+0.4% vs +0.2% expected) all reinforce the same disinflation-favors-EUR narrative and the ECB's data-dependent September-hike case. The US Employment Cost Index at 12:30 UTC is today's live wildcard that could break this alignment if wage growth surprises hot.
Dollar flows in aggregate (DXY) — agree. DXY has been unwinding for three consecutive sessions now (Iran de-escalation, dovish Fed, cooling PCE); Friday's modest pullback to ~1.1517 reads as normal digestion within that unwind, not an early reversal signal.
Risk tone — neutral, not leaning on it. No standalone risk-off catalyst is in view outside the calendar; secondary to the pair's usual ordering.
Session mechanics — agree/context. The Eurozone flash HICP (European morning) and US ECI (12:30 UTC) are today's real ignition windows rather than the London open on its own; month-end WM/Reuters fix flows around 15:00-16:00 UTC add a mechanical flow layer independent of the fundamental drivers above.

Alignment verdict: partial alignment. Three of four drivers point the same way today — a rarer setup than Thursday's internal split — but the US ECI is a live, scheduled wildcard capable of breaking that alignment, which is why the day-type call stays Range rather than Trend despite the favorable backdrop.

Session Map

Asian session (00:00-07:00 UTC): Thin, digesting Thursday's close. Per this pair's tendency, the Asian high/low here is a liquidity read, not a level — expect a probe near the 1.1500-1.1520 area with no structural signal either way.
European morning / Eurozone flash HICP window (approximately 08:00-09:30 UTC, exact release timing not independently re-verified): The session's first real decision point — can activate the continuation branch if the print lands at or above consensus, or the reversal branch if it surprises cooler. Overlaps with London's usual 07:00-09:00 UTC ignition window, which carries a documented Judas-roundtrip tendency on this pair and should be read skeptically ahead of the print.
Pre-ECI compression (09:30-12:00 UTC): Expect the range to compress further into the US print; per standard pre-event discipline, no fresh directional lean should be drawn in the 30 minutes immediately before 12:30 UTC.
US Employment Cost Index (12:30 UTC): The session's second and larger decision point. Activates the continuation branch if wage growth confirms cooling, or the hawkish-repricing reversal branch if it surprises hot.
Post-print window (12:30-16:00 UTC), including Chicago PMI (13:45 UTC) and University of Michigan final sentiment (14:00 UTC): These two tier-2 releases are secondary volatility windows, unlikely to override the ECI reaction but capable of extending or fading it. Per priors, the first 15-30 minutes after the 12:30 UTC print is a sweep-fade window, not confirmation.
Month-end WM/Reuters fix (approximately 15:00-16:00 UTC): A mechanical flow window that can move price independent of the day's fundamentals — today's "what's different" factor; avoid treating a fix-driven spike as directional confirmation on its own.
NY afternoon (16:00-20:00 UTC): Per Wednesday and Thursday's repeated lesson for this instrument, durable confirmation has been building in this window rather than in the immediate print reaction — weight it more heavily than the initial 12:30 UTC move.
Late session (20:00-24:00 UTC): Typically a dead zone for this pair; expect it to carry forward whichever branch actually confirmed during the NY afternoon into the weekend close.

No-Trade Conditions

30 minutes either side of the Eurozone flash HICP release (European morning) and the 12:00-13:00 UTC window around the 12:30 UTC US Employment Cost Index print: the standard's pre-event blackout plus the immediate post-print sweep-fade window, where the first move is unreliable.
13:00-16:00 UTC unless a confirming leg has built: the post-print damage zone, where an initial reaction is more likely to fade or reverse than continue.
Any stretch where price sits inside the 1.1482-1.1536 band without a decisive, held break of either edge: with the lead scenario capped at 45% and no branch clearing 50%, an undecided range here is itself the no-trade signal, not just a sub-50% probability on paper.
The month-end WM/Reuters fix window (approximately 15:00-16:00 UTC): mechanical rebalancing flows can produce a move that reverses once the fix clears; do not treat a fix-window spike as a confirmed break without seeing it hold into the NY afternoon.

What to Watch — Invalidation

A held H1 close above 1.1536: confirms the post-FOMC breakout has legs into a third session and opens a path toward the 1.1560-1.1600 zone.
A held H1 close below 1.1482, and especially below 1.1475: the first structural crack in the breakout, reopening a test of 1.1424 and then 1.1400.
The Eurozone flash HICP print itself: whether headline confirms the ~2.8% YoY consensus (or surprises hotter, reinforcing the ECB's September-hike case) or surprises cooler (undercutting it).
The US Employment Cost Index print: whether wage-cost growth confirms the cooling path Thursday's PCE already showed, or reaccelerates and revives the hawkish Fed repricing Wednesday's hold appeared to close off.
Whether a move through the 15:00-16:00 UTC month-end fix window holds into the NY afternoon close versus mean-reverting once the fix clears — the distinguishing test between fix noise and genuine directional confirmation.