SINGAPORELONDON, Jan 25 Reuters The euro on Thursday sat just above a sixweek low against the U.S. dollar hit earlier in the week, ahead of a European Central Bank ECB meeting and U.S. GDP data that could offer investors indications of the path ahead for interest rates.

The common currency was last flat at 1.0856, not far from the 1.0822 touched on Tuesday, its lowest since midDecember.

Moves on Thursday morning were muted as traders have several events to react to later in the day.

First, the ECB announces its latest policy decision at 1315 GMT. While the central bank is expected to keep rates steady, the focus is on whether President Christine Lagarde deviates from expectations that she pushes back firmly against market bets on rate cuts as soon as April at her press conference.

Markets are pricing around 125 bps of cuts from the ECB this year.

President Lagarde sent a clear message over the potential timing of the first ECB rate cut when she stated that they plan to cut rates in the summer. We expect this message to be repeated at todays policy meeting, said Lee Hardman, senior FX analyst at MUFG, in a note to clients.

It should mean that todays ECB policy is more of a holding operation … which is likely to have limited impact on the performance of the euro.

Fifteen minutes after the ECB rate decision is announced comes the first reading of fourthquarter U.S. gross domestic product GDP. Expectations are for 2 annualised growth, according to a Reuters poll,…