Wed, 02 Feb 2011 19:28:00 +0100

Forex: Dollar gains ground on American hours; Wall Street mix

FXstreet.com (Córdoba) – Stocks in the US are practically unchanged and the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 move in ranges around important levels. The Dollar is the best performers so far during the American session among majors.

The Dow Jones is up 0.06% and settles at 12,045 while the S&P is holding above 1,300 despite falling 0.22%. Markets in Europe finished with mix results. In Germany the Dax lost 0.01% while in the UK the FTSE 100 gained 0.71%.

Not much reaction to the ADP report


US private sector payrolls increased by 187.000 in December according to ADP, beating market consensus of an increase of 145,000. November's reading was revised to 247,000 from the 297,000 previously estimated.
“This data sheds absolutely no light at all onto the direction of the US unemployment rate. As a the product of the choppy and often uncorrelated (with payrolls) household employment survey, plus the erratic labour force data, even the direction of the unemployment rate is unfathomable at this stage”, Bill Hubard from MIG Bank said regarding employment data.



Dollar recovers ground

EUR/USD fell back below 1.3800 and reached a fresh low at 1.3766. At the moment the pair is fighting to rise back above 1.3800 and is headed toward a small daily loss after rising 260 pips in the previous two days.

The Pound and the Canadian Dollar are the best performers on a daily basis among major but both currencies lost momentum after Wall Street opening. GBP/USD trimmed gains and fell back below 1.6200 after hitting at 1.6229 the highest price since November 5.

USD/JPY broke above 81.60 and rose to 81.82, new daily high as the Yen weakened across the board amid an increase in government bond yields.

The Swiss Franc fell sharply in the last hours and currently trades at daily lows in the market. USD/CHF is trading back on top of 0.9400 and is getting closer to yesterday’s high that lie at 0.9455.