The US dollar has rallied in response to news that US non-farm payrolls (NFPs) for the month of May fell by only 345,000 in May, the slowest decline since September 2008. NFPs had been forecasted to fall by 520,000, and while the results still reflect the seventeenth straight month of job losses, they also show that labor market conditions have been slowly improving since the start of the year.
That said, the US unemployment rate rose more than anticipated to 9.4 percent - the highest since August 1983 - from 8.9 percent, which was partly the result of an increase in the participation rate to 65.9 percent.
[B]US Unemployment Rate (Monthly)[/B]
[I]Source: Bloomberg[/I]
The US dollar’s reaction was interesting in that we haven’t seen fundamental forces drive the currency in quite a while, as the greenback has generally traded as a “safe haven” asset in recent months, gaining during times of risk aversion and stock market losses while losing at times of improved investor sentiment. A continuation of this dynamic bodes well for US dollar bulls, as US economic data has generally suggested that the recession bottomed between Q4 2008 and Q1 2009. However, how the majors close today will be far more telling than intraday choppy price action.
[I]Source: FXTrek Intellichart
Source: FXTrek Intellichart[/I]