US nonfarm payrolls should have been the major event this week, but in reality it turned out to be kind of a non-event as markets almost ignored the report, allowing the US dollar to end the week rather strong.
The official employment report showed very underwhelming growth, which was a huge surprise considering that the private ADP data released beforehand demonstrated a very different picture. The dollar fell after the report but bounced almost immediately. One of the possible reasons for such behavior was concern about geopolitical issues that was driving investors towards safer currencies. The same fear allowed the yen to outperform the greenback, though.
Meanwhile, the euro was hurt by dovish comments of European Central Bank officials. ECB President Mario Draghi hinted that markets misinterpreted the central bank’s policy statement, pricing in monetary tightening, while the ECB has no such intentions, at least for now.
EUR/USD was down from 1.0661 to 1.0589 over the week. GBP/USD dropped from 1.2546 to 1.2360. USD/JPY slipped from 111.40 to 110.97 but bounced from the weekly low of 110.13.
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