🤯 Have you seen our AI stock pickers’ 2024 results? 84.62%! Grab November’s list now.Pick Stocks with AI

Dollar stable after payrolls gains; euro slips on weak data

Published 07/10/2024, 09:02
© Reuters.
EUR/USD
-
GBP/USD
-
USD/JPY
-
USD/CNY
-

Investing.com - The U.S. dollar stabilized Monday, holding onto the gains seen after Friday’s strong jobs report at the start of a week that includes the release of key inflation data as well as the minutes from the last Federal Reserve meeting. 

At 04:00 ET (08:00 GMT), the Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, traded marginally lower at 102.247. It rose 0.5% on Friday to a seven-week high, logging more than 2% gains for the week, its biggest in two years. 

Payrolls boosts the dollar 

The growth in US payrolls quashed fears of a U.S. economic slowdown, and furthered the notion that the Fed will not need to cut interest rates sharply to support the economy, boosting the dollar.

Traders were seen largely wiping out bets on another 50 basis point cut at the next Fed meeting, and were pricing in an over 90% chance of a 25 bps cut, CME Fedwatch showed.

Focus this week is on addresses by a slew of Fed officials, more inflation data, as well as the minutes of the Fed’s September meeting. The Fed had cut rates by 50 bps during the meeting and announced the start of an easing cycle, although it still said future rate cuts will be data-dependent.

“The blowout US jobs report on Friday prompted the kind of hawkish repricing in rate expectations we thought would have materialised over a few weeks,” said analysts at ING, in a note. 

“Markets no longer have pretext to look through Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s pushback against 50bp cuts, and are now finally aligned with the Dot Plot projections: 25bp cuts in November and December.”  

The safe-haven greenback has also received a boost from the turmoil in the Middle East, with Israel bombing Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip on Sunday ahead of Monday’s one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks that sparked its war.  

Weak German data hits euro

In Europe, EUR/USD drifted 0.1% lower to 1.0965, with the euro weakening after German factory orders slumped 5.8% on the month in August, another illustration of the economic difficulties the eurozone’s largest economy is struggling with.

Eurozone retail sales for August are due later in the session, and should show how consumers are faring during these tricky times.

ECB chief economist Philip Lane as well as board members Piero Cipollone and Jose Luis Escriva are all scheduled to speak later Monday, and are likely to follow President Christine Lagarde in signalling a brisk pace of further easing. 

GBP/USD slipped slightly to 1.3113, after suffering a 1.9% drop last week, its steepest fall since early 2023.

Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill said on Friday the central bank should move only gradually with cutting interest rates, a day after governor Andrew Bailey was quoted as saying the BoE might move more aggressively to lower borrowing costs.

Doubts over BoJ raising rates

USD/JPY fell 0.3% to 148.22, paring back earlier gains after the pair surged to its highest level since mid-August.

The yen was hit by growing doubts over the Bank of Japan’s ability to keep raising interest rates in the coming months, especially amid uncertainty over the upcoming Japanese general elections.

USD/CNY was largely unchanged at 7.0176, with Chinese markets still closed as the country celebrates Golden Week.

 

Latest comments

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
Before deciding to trade in financial instrument or cryptocurrencies you should be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite, and seek professional advice where needed.
Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. The data and prices on the website are not necessarily provided by any market or exchange, but may be provided by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual price at any given market, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Fusion Media and any provider of the data contained in this website will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of your trading, or your reliance on the information contained within this website.
It is prohibited to use, store, reproduce, display, modify, transmit or distribute the data contained in this website without the explicit prior written permission of Fusion Media and/or the data provider. All intellectual property rights are reserved by the providers and/or the exchange providing the data contained in this website.
Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers
© 2007-2024 - Fusion Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.