When is the ECB interest rate decision and how could it affect EUR/USD?

The European Central Bank (ECB) is scheduled to announce its monetary policy decision at 12:45 GMT, which would be followed by the ECB President Mario Draghi's post-meeting press conference at 13:30 GMT. 

Widely expected to stay on hold

The ECB is also universally expected to stand pat, but traders will look for more signals from updated projections for economic growth and inflation, and whether the bank’s stimulus measures will be further tapered after September 2018. The central bank in October said it would halve its bond-purchase program to €30 billion from €60 billion starting next month.

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The ECB President Mario Draghi will subsequently hold a press conference and according to analysts at TDS, "we look for Draghi to steer the conversation toward the continuous improvement in the growth outlook, and the ECB’s confidence that underlying inflation will rise as excess slack continues to diminish. We look for questions on the composition of QE and recent moves in EONIA."

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Implications for EUR/USD

Valeria Bednarik, American Chief Analyst at FXStreet notes, "the pair is still unable to break above the 1.1830 region, where in the 4 hours chart, it has its 100 SMA, alongside with the 50% retracement of its latest daily decline. However, the Momentum indicator maintains its bullish slope at fresh weekly highs, while the RSI hovers around 58 after correcting from near overbought readings. A break above the mentioned resistance should result in an advance up to 1.1870 initially, where selling interest has been strong in the previous week, while beyond it,  the rally could extend up to the 1.1900/10 price zone."

"Below 1.1790, on the other hand, the risk turns towards the downside, with next supports at 1.1750 and 1.1710" she further added.

About the interest rate decision 

Short term interest rates are the paramount factor in currency valuation - traders look at most other indicators merely to predict how rates will change in the future. The 6 members of the ECB Executive Board and 15 of the 19 governors of the Euro area central banks vote on where to set the rate, via rotation. The split of votes, however, is not publicly revealed.