The world’s most-traded currency pair is stuck in such a rut that even monetary policy decisions don’t seem to matter anymore.
The euro swung by less than one US cent last week, the smallest move on the day of a European Central Bank (ECB) meeting since officials started quantitative easing in March last year. Over the past three months, it’s been the least volatile since January 2015.
The lack of reaction to the ECB shows that with a key Federal Reserve meeting and the UK’s European Union referendum coming up this month, other cues are becoming more important for the shared currency. 
That’s a challenge for ECB President Mario Draghi, who needs a weaker euro to meet his goals of boosting growth and inflation.
“The ECB isn’t really a live issue,” said Ian Gunner, who manages a currency fund at family office Altana Wealth in London. “They’ve done what they’ve done and nothing else is planned by them for the foreseeable future. The focus is now elsewhere, like on the Fed and also Brexit.”
After plunging as much as 25% from May 2014 through the start of QE, the euro has since leveled off. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg see the currency little changed by the end of the third quarter from its level of $1.1141 in London on Friday.
It’s a far cry from the days before the ECB started its unprecedented bond-purchase plan. Draghi moved the euro by more than 3 US cents on January 22, 2015, sending it tumbling to an 11-year low, by saying QE would be bigger than markets had anticipated. “Pretty overwhelming” was billionaire investor George Soros’s verdict on the announcement.
If the ECB president is losing his ability to move the 19-nation currency, it’s an issue for his management of the economy. While Draghi reiterated on Thursday that he doesn’t target the exchange rate, he said it’s important for price stability.
A stable and predictable currency is good for companies as it helps with planning, and bad news for traders who find it harder to make money in a market that isn’t moving. 
Pacific Investment Management Co has reduced its foreign-exchange exposure on the expectation that currencies will trade in tight ranges. “We knew that this meeting would be quite boring,” said Vincent Chaigneau, global head of rates and foreign-exchange strategy at Societe Generale in London. “There are much bigger events coming up in June.”
The main focus of currency traders this month is the Fed’s policy announcement on June 15, where the chance of a rate increase implied in futures prices has almost doubled in the past month to 22%. Higher US rates would support the dollar at the expense of the euro.
It’s that divergence between a Fed that’s tightening policy and an ECB that’s still expanding its balance sheet and has cut rates to record lows that sent the euro tumbling through the start of QE. The US payrolls report on Friday will also be keenly watched because it may provide clues about the policy path.
A possibly less-welcome driver is the UK’s referendum on EU membership on June 23, where the prospect of Britain leaving the world’s largest trading bloc is widely seen hurting the euro-dollar rate, as well as the pound. 
The single currency fell 2.8% last month, the most since November, as a series of polls suggested a Brexit appeared more likely.
Trading the euro against the dollar accounts for 24% of all currency deals, making it the most popular transaction in the world’s largest financial market, according to the Bank for International Settlements, the central bank for central banks.
Euro-dollar volatility during the past three months fell to 8.4%, the lowest since January 2015 and down from as much as 14% last July, based on closing prices compiled by Bloomberg. A gauge of anticipated swings dropped to 8.6%, close to the lowest in more than a year, after Draghi kept interest rates, the bond-purchase program and the long-term inflation outlook for the eurozone unchanged.
“The problem that Draghi has is that he doesn’t want to say anything that puts the euro up,” said Steven Bell, London-based global macro strategist at BMO Global Asset Management, which oversees about $230bn. “He didn’t want to say that the economy is improving in Europe because he wants to keep the dangled carrot of further easing. He’s hoping the Fed tightens and the euro goes down, probably.”