MW:Dollar rises vs. rivals ahead of nonfarm payrolls
TOKYO (MarketWatch) — The dollar rose against major rivals Friday, on expectations that the U.S. Labor Department’s eagerly awaited monthly nonfarm-payrolls report for June will show an improvement.
Economists polled by MarketWatch expect a gain of 115,000, and that the nation’s unemployment rate will remain steady at 9.1%. See MarketWatch economic calendar.
“For the dollar, any signs that the economy is recovering some of its lost traction will probably be warmly received,” said currency strategists at FxPro.
Raising hopes for Friday’s data, Automatic Data Processing Inc.'s employment report released Thursday showed private-sector employment rose 157,000 in June, more than double the 70,000 increase expected by economists. Read more on ADP report.
The euro EURUSD -0.69% slipped to $1.4314 from $1.4353 in late North American trading Thursday. See real-time currency quotes and tools.
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The dollar index DXY +0.35% , which measures the U.S. unit’s value against a basket of six major currencies, rose to 75.099 from 74.938 late Thursday.
Against the Japanese yen, the dollar USDJPY +0.09% bought ¥81.35, compared with ¥81.23 late Thursday.
Japanese government data released earlier Friday showed the country’s current-account surplus for May was sharply down from the year-earlier month due to the impact of the March disaster, but still came in better than economists had expected.
Japan’s surplus slipped 51.7% to 590.7 billion yen, but that was better than economists’ median forecast for a 77.5% drop, according to a survey by Japanese business daily Nikkei and Dow Jones Newswires.
The Australian dollar AUDUSD -0.12% was almost unchanged at $1.0774 compared with $1.0773 late Thursday, and the British pound GBPUSD -0.15% was at $1.5969, nearly flat from $1.5968.
Lisa Twaronite is MarketWatch's Tokyo bureau chief.
