A post-non-farm shuffle in the forex markets helped tip the European indices into the red on Friday, while the Dow Jones just about nudged its nose into the green.
The actual headline non-farm number was decent: June’s reading besting forecasts of 195k to come in at 213k, with May’s figure revised higher to 244k. However, elsewhere the report wasn’t anywhere near as strong. Average hourly earnings slipped back to 0.2%, while the unemployment rate surprisingly jumped up to 4.0% from 3.8%, a rise that appeared to be the sticking point for disappointed investors.
All this left the dollar, which has been acting as a safe haven for trade war-fearing traders, down in the dumps, with the greenback falling 0.2% against the yen, 0.4% against the pound and 0.6% against the euro. That decline is perhaps being informed by the fear that these figures may put the Fed off another rate hike in the coming months.
With the dollar’s rivals getting a rare win over the currency, their respective indices were left in the red. The FTSE dipped 0.2%, keeping it the wrong side of 7600, with the DAX falling 25 points and the CAC down 15. The Dow Jones, in contrast, managed to sit flat at 24350, sporadically edging higher. It must be noted that the fact the markets avoided a bloodier session is to be applauded, given the trade tariff tit-for-tatting from the US and China this Friday.
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