AUD/USD
The Aussie rose and corrected on Friday, closing at 0.7044(+22 pips) against the greenback. Having closed at .7045 on Friday, the AUD/USD currently trades at .7033, weighed down by the release of softer-than-expected Chinese monetary growth figures for February released over the weekend.
The early decline has seen the AUD/USD give back much of gains from Friday, something that was sparked by a big slowdown in US jobs growth in February. US non-farm payrolls grew by just 20,000 last month, well below the 180,000 increase expected.
Helping to limit the Aussie’s gains against the greenback, the US unemployment rate tumbled to 3.8% while average hourly earnings grew at the fastest year-ended pace since the GFC.
While the latter two figures are arguably more important when it comes to the outlook for monetary policy settings from the US Federal Reserve, it was the payrolls figure that markets chose to focus on. That was despite clear evidence that weather likely contributed to the February result.
"The [payrolls] number needed to be seen in context of an exceptional January print — revised up to 311,000 and weather-related hits to the likes of the construction sector,” said Ray Attrill, Head of FX Strategy at the National Australia Bank.
EURUSD
The euro strengthened on Friday last week, closing at 1.1233(+36 pips) against the greenback. From the US side, data was neither here nor there as mixed employment data triggered some profit-taking ahead of the weekly close.
US delayed Retail Sales for January expected to show a modest bounce after plummeting in December. However, the unemployment rate fell to 3.8% while wages increased by more-than-anticipated, offsetting the negative line.
January jobs' creation was upwardly revised to 311K, while housing data released alongside also beat expectations. The pair closed the week with losses as the shared currency remained out of the market's favour after the dovish announcement from the ECB on Thursday.
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