The U.S. dollar was trading higher Friday just as the North American session is about to start. Position-squaring in Asia and Europe had pushed short-term technical indicators into an overextended condition and near-midday in Europe the dollar began recovering.
The euro has been sliding across the board. One trigger may have been the collapse in the euro against the Swiss franc when the CHF1.40 level gave way. Yet there is some risk of "buy the rumor, sell the fact" activity after the jobs data.
New Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan is talking a tougher fiscal line but has not distanced himself from previous soft yen comments. The dollar has made a new marginal high against the yen for the week and reached its best level since May 18, but resistance in the 93.00-30 yen area remains intact. The Canadian jobs data were better than expected with 24,700 jobs created compared with 15,000 expected, but the key is a whopping 67m300 full-time jobs.
Global equities were mixed Friday after Thursday's recovery in the U.S. The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index was down fractionally, nearly fully recovering earlier losses. In fact, those bourses that are open the latest, like India, Thailand and Singapore did best gaining around 0.5%.
European bourses were mostly higher, with Spain and Greece the main exceptions. Financials were easily the weakest sector in Spain, but in Greece consumer goods, telecom and utilities were doing worse than the financials. In the Dow Jones Stoxx 600, financials are higher, but it is the sector with the smallest gain.
