The US dollar was moving down during the first half of Friday’s trading session but reversed the losses after the surprisingly positive employment report.
US non-farm payrolls climbed 255,000 in July, topping the forecast growth by 180,000 and the previous month’s increase by 292,000. Average hourly earnings grew 0.3%, faster than the 0.2% rate of growth predicted by experts and the June’s 0.1%. The only slightly negative indicator was the unemployment rate that stayed at 4.9% whereas analysts were hoping for a small decrease to 4.8%.
The positive data was welcomed by dollar bulls as it gave fuel to speculations about an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve this year. Saying that, more than a half of analysts believe that the Fed will not move by the year end as was shown by the CME FedWatch tool.
EUR/USD dropped from 1.1128 to 1.1091 as of 18:27 GMT today. GBP/USD ticked down from 1.3104 to 1.3076, backing off after the initial advance. USD/JPY went up from 101.21 to 101.75.
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