Daily Update - 6th February 2020
The euro declined against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday, as investors regained their confidence in the market after an outbreak of coronavirus in China. The newly identified coronavirus has created alarm because it is spreading quickly and there is little known about it. Sterling strengthened against dollar on Wednesday after better-than-expected service activity data offset fears of a hard Brexit. The IHS Markit/CIPS UK Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 53.9 January, a full point higher than a preliminary reading for the month and up from 50.0 in December. The economic calendar is fairly light today, but you can always count on Thursday jobless claims. Initial Jobless claims for first-time unemployment benefits are expected to tick down slightly to 215,000. At the same time the Labor Department will also report on productivity and labor costs. The preliminary measure of fourth-quarter nonfarm productivity is forecast to have risen 1.6%. Unit labor costs are expected to have risen 1.4%. Outside of the numbers, the ECB economic bulletin and EU Economic Forecasts, due out on Thursday, will also provide direction. Yesterday’s Market
Yesterday’s explained
From USD side we saw the jobs market kicked off 2020 in grand fashion, adding 291,000 in private payrolls for the best monthly gain since May 2015, according to a report Wednesday from ADP and Moody’s Analytics. The ADP count comes two days ahead of the government’s more closely watched nonfarm payrolls report, which includes government jobs that ADP does not count. Job growth likely came in at 158,000 compared with the initially reported 145,000 in December, according to Dow Jones estimates. The unemployment rate is expected to hold at 3.5%, the lowest since December 1969.Today’s Market
Today’s Focus
