USD stronger ahead of employment report

The US Dollar is still making gains despite the less than exciting data we got from the US yesterday. Briefly, the manufacturing PMIs were below forecast, the employment component of that was in negative territory, continuing jobless claims were much higher than expected but the fresh claims were down. That slightly negative tone should probably have weakened the USD. However, either it spooked investors into buying the safety of the US treasury market, or the negative stuff was ignored and the positive data on fresh jobless claims gave the USD a boost ahead of today’s June employment report.

Either way, GBPUSD is down to $1.3750 this morning and the EURUSD rate is down to $1.1835; both are levels we haven’t seen since April. The pattern for USD-related exchange rates is similar across the board. Hence, the main focus of this first Friday of July is the US employment report. The general view is that 700,000 new jobs were created in June. Anything more than that would, most likely weaken the USD as everyone says, “phew” and takes a little profit on the USD strength we have seen throughout the week.

There is other news of course but not a lot of it. Canada will release building permits data as well as international trade numbers. That is not expected to cause much of a stir for the Canadian Dollar. The US Dollar’s influence on the loonie is not as evident today as it has been. GBPCAD did dive with the fall in the GBPUSD rate but it is back in familiar territory this morning above CAD 1.71.

And I am feeling pretty inadequate this morning after watching an 18-year-old, who just finished her A levels, win her 2nd round game at Wimbledon against Marketa Vondrousova, a player ranked roughly 300 places higher than her. Emma Raducanu is a superstar in the making…. and she’s a Brit, gawd luv ‘er!

Have a great tennis watching weekend…in between the rain of course.