US Employment data due out at the bottom of the hour
With the US employment report due out at the bottom of the hour, the NZD is the strongest of the major currencies today, while the CAD is the weakest. The changes are relatively modest (the currencies are bunched together), which can be typical ahead of a key economic release or event.
The USD is mostly lower vs the majors, with only marginal gains vs the CHF and CAD, It is down the most vs the NZD and GBP.
The US is expected to add 85K jobs with the GM strike impacting the number (about 45-50K). The average hourly earnings are expected to rise by 0.3% (3.0% YoY), and the unemployment rate is expected to tick up to 3.6% from 3.5% last.
Looking at the ranges and changes, all the major pairs and crosses are well below their 22 day averages (the GBPUSD is the most volatile at 46 pips). For the USD, the changes vs the EURUSD, USDJPY, USDCHF, USDCAD and AUDUSD are all within 6 pips of the close from yesterday. The market is awaiting the clue from the jobs report.
How are the other markets looking at the NY morning snapshot?
- Spot gold is trading down $-2.24 or -0.15% at $1510.68. It rose sharply yesterday helped by the weaker USD.
- WTI crude oil futures are trading up $0.42 or 0.78% at $54.60
In the premarket for US stocks, the futures are implying modestly higher openings for the major indices:
- Dow, +32 points
- NASDAQ +8 points
- S&P index +3.6 points
In the European stock market, the indices are trading higher:
- German DAX, +0.4%
- France's CAC, +0.3%
- UK's FTSE 100, +0.3%
- Spain's Ibex, +0.2%
- Italy's FTSE MIB, +0.5%
In the US debt market, yields are marginally lower and taking a little breather after 2 days of sharp declines post the FOMC decision
In the European debt market, the benchmark 10 year yields are marginally higher with Italy up the most at 1.7 basis points.
