ECB Rate Announcement and Press Conference - Pullback and Blast higher for short squeeze

This morning at 12:45 GMT (7:45 EST) the ECB made their Interest Rate Announcment followed by ECB's Mario Draghi's Press Conference 45 minutes later at 13:30 GMT (8:30 EST). Out of the 53 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg only 6 expected a further cut of 25 basis points today, the rest expected the ECB to keep rates steady. Since they cut at their last meeting and there have been a few signs that things have improved and about 2-3 hours before the Rate announcement there were very successful Bond Auctions for Spain and Italy. Click here for another article from Reuters.

So basically the EURUSD had been rallying since these bond auctions anyhow, but after the release the pair did retrace some and actually the US Retail Sales did come out just as Mario Draghi was about to release the ECB statement. Here is a 10 second chart of the price action on the EURUSD after the No Change rate figures was released thru the wires, the EURUSD was basically at its highs for the day when it came out, but it was a no change as expected, and the fact that 6 analysts expected a cut was not enough to push the pair up when the decision no to cut was made by the ECB. Basically the ECB has a little breathing room with the recent LTRO bonds and today's successful Italian and Spanish auctions:

We can see from the 1 minute chart below the Yellow Arrow is the release of the Rates then the Red Arrow is when the US Retail Sales number hit. It was a poor reading the EURUSD also sold off along with all risky assets...then there was some chop as the Daily Central pivot was tested at 1.2724 before it rallied thru Draghis Speech and the Q&A session which followed. Here are links to the Text of the Speech: ECB's Draghi Speech Text Part 1 and Part II, a Summary of Draghi's Statements, Summary of the Q&A session, Another Summary, More from MNI Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 Yes that's alot of stuff to read...the chart is alot more simple and straight-forward!!! 8)