Market Analysis
XRPUSD week ahead: what to watch after choppy 2026-07-20
XRPUSD closed last week near 1.0864 after a mid-week rejection from 1.1272, and a thin macro calendar leaves price action and positioning in charge this week.
3 min readETHUSD opened Monday at 1802.99 and closed Friday at 1838.45, a net gain of roughly 35 points on the week, or about 2 percent. The bulk of that move came early. Tuesday and Wednesday drove price from a low near 1747 to a weekly high of 1943.43 before Thursday and Friday handed most of the advance back.
The centre of gravity is the European Central Bank on Thursday, 2026-07-23. The Main Refinancing Rate is forecast to hold at 2.40 percent, with the Monetary Policy Statement at 12:15 and the ECB Press Conference at 12:45. Even though ETHUSD is a dollar cross, a hawkish or dovish ECB shifts broad dollar direction, and dollar direction is the main external lever on crypto pricing during quiet on-chain weeks.
Inflation data fills the rest of the calendar. Canada's CPI m/m lands Monday at 12:30 with a forecast of -0.2 percent against a prior 1.0 percent. UK CPI y/y prints Wednesday at 2.7 percent versus a prior 2.8 percent. New Zealand CPI q/q is due Sunday evening at 22:45 with a forecast of 1.5 percent, and Australian Employment Change arrives Thursday at 01:30. Each of these moves its home currency against the dollar, and the aggregate effect on the dollar index is what tends to bleed into ETHUSD. Open an LHFX account to trade ETHUSD this week and track these prints as they land.
If the ECB statement reads more hawkish than the held rate implies and the euro firms, the dollar softens on the cross, which has historically given crypto room to lift. In that case a push back toward last week's 1914 close and then the 1943 high is the obvious sequence to watch. If the press conference leans dovish and the dollar catches a bid, the pressure runs the other way and last week's 1800 area comes back into focus. A hotter-than-forecast UK or Canadian CPI would reinforce a firmer dollar and the same downside path. Correlation matters here: watch Bitcoin for confirmation, since ETHUSD rarely moves against it on macro-driven sessions.
LHFX client positioning shows 62.1 percent long against 37.9 percent short as of Monday. That is a clear long skew going into the week. A crowded long book means late buyers have less room above before profit-taking meets them, and it raises the risk of a sharper unwind if price breaks below last week's lows. The skew tells you consensus is leaning up, not that the move is confirmed.
Last week's high at 1943.43 is the upper reference. A move above 1914, the Wednesday close, that holds early in the week puts that high back in play. On the downside, the 1800 handle marked Friday's session low near 1800.25, and below that the weekly low at 1747.29 is the next reference. These are levels for orientation, not entry signals.
Byline: LHFX Research
Risk disclaimer. CFD trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for every investor. Leverage works both ways and can amplify losses beyond your initial deposit. The analysis above is general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any instrument. LHFX is regulated by the FSC Mauritius and the FSCA in South Africa.
