The dollar advanced sharply in the Thursday session, climbing to its highest level since May 2009 against the euro at 1.3728 and surging against the Canadian dollar to 1.0752. The US equity indexes retreated sharply, with the Dow Jones lower by 2.3%, the S&P 500 tumbling by more than 2.6% and the Nasdaq falling by nearly 2.5%. Crude oil plunged by more than 5% to below $73-per barrel while spot gold shed 4.3% to $1,062 per ounce. Weekly jobless claims missed consensus estimates for an improvement to 455k, instead increasing to 480k from an upwardly revised 472k in the previous week. The larger than expected weekly jobless claims figure bodes poorly for Friday’s highly anticipated non-farm payrolls report. The Q4 non-farm productivity missed forecasts, up 6.2% and down from 7.2% in the previous month while unit labor costs fell by 4.4% versus a 1.5% decline from Q3. Meanwhile, factory orders increased by 0.5% in December compared with a downwardly revised 1.0% increase in the previous month.
Markets will look ahead to the highly anticipated labor report due out tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM. Consensus estimates call for the unemployment rate to remain unchanged at 10.0% while non-farm payrolls are forecast to show an increase of 8k jobs versus a loss of 85k jobs in December. Also to be closely focused on will be the revisions to previous months’ NFP. If the payrolls figure disappoints sharply to the downside, the dollar is seen extending today’s gains across the board.
by Korman Tam
ForexNews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment