The U.S. Dollar inched higher during the Asian trading session, staying above a recently struck 8-month trough though market players are hedging their bets ahead of today’s late release of the September new private sector jobs figures from the U.S. Department of Labor. A recent survey is predicting that about 180,000 new jobs will have been added with no change to the current 7.3% unemployment rate; given the Fed’s mandate of full employment, the numbers will be scrutinized by markets for a hint as to the timing of the Fed’s pull back on stimulus measures.
The U.S. Dollar Index, the measure of the dollar’s strength relative to a weighted basket of peers, traded higher at 79.779 .DXY, a gain of 0.1% yet still better than 1% off of last Wednesday’s high. The 16-day shutdown of the Federal government has played havoc with the greenback’s value and many ponder the affect it has had on the fragile U.S. economy, with many doubtful it can be resilient enough at this stage to weather Fed tapering.
Dollar Strengthening but Traders Wary
The EUR/USD pair moved away from Friday’s 8-month peak and traded 0.1% lower at $1.3666 while the USD/JPY pair edged about 0.2% higher to trade at 98.33 Japanese Yen, off of Friday’s 1-week low of 97.55 Yen. The Aussie Dollar is still trying to reach parity with its U.S. counterpart, with the AUD/USD pair holding steady at $0.9648, moving off of Friday’s 4-month peak of $0.9680; the pair will have to breach $0.97 for investors to consider it a good attempt at parity.