Forex news for US trading on December 4, 2015:

  • November 2015 US non-farm payrolls 211k vs 200k exp
  • Canadian Nov employment -35.7K vs -10.0K expected
  • OPEC decision abandons quotas
  • Draghi says output gap is gradually closing
  • Fed's Harker: Dec hike would reduce uncertainty
  • Canada Ivey Nov manufacturing PMI 63.6 vs 53.0 expected
  • Canada trade balance -2.76B vs -1.7B est
  • US Trade balance -43.89B vs. -40.50B
  • Fed's Kocherlakota: Fed kept inflation and employment needlessly low for years
  • CFTC commitment of traders report. EUR shorts increased before ECB decision
  • Baker Hughes US oil rig count 545 vs 555 last week
  • Euro falls after Draghi talks up the size of bond reinvestment
  • Atlanta Fed GDPNow Q4 forecast +1.5% vs +1.4% prior
  • Gold up $24 to $1087
  • WTI crude down $1.02 to $40.06
  • S&P 500 up 42 points to 2092
  • NZD leads, EUR lags

The US dollar got a jolt from an upbeat non-farm payrolls report but it didn't last long. It dropped to 1.0875 from 1.0910 but bounced right back within the hour and then continued to climb all the way to a session high at 1.0950.

Selling hit into the European close as it faded back to 1.0890 and then dropped to 1.0835 from 1.0885 on the Draghi headlines. From there it tried the downside a few times but the spike low held. It recovered to 1.0872 before long and that's where it finished.

USD/JPY whipped down and higher on non-farm payrolls but was precisely in the same place an hour later. It continued to bounce around the 123.10 to 122.80 range before it finally pushed to 123.25 on the monster day in stocks.

Cable was in a chop all day long as it's was more of a passenger than a driver. It tried either side of a 1.5080 to 1.5145 range a few times and finished at 1.5100.

USD/CAD rose to 1.3410 on the combination of the soft Canadian employment report (but not as soft as the headline) and weak oil prices on OPEC. Yet it bounced back along with the rest of the commodity bloc and then finished at 1.3359.

The Aussie was impressive again. It fell down to 0.7275 from 0.7350 on non-farm payrolls but bounced right back and then continued to soar all the way to 0.7380 and briefly took out the October high. It couldn't hold and faded back to 0.7333 but it was a solid performance nonetheless.

Have a great weekend!