Forex - Dollar mixed after job data announcement

Forex Pros – pros - The U.S. dollar was mixed Thursday against its major counterparts following the release of labor data showing employment growth far exceeding market expectations and an encouraging sign that recovery in the U.S. economy was beginning to gather momentum.

During early Asian trade the greenback was up against the euro, with EUR/USD falling 0.03% to hit 1.4358.

Earlier in the day, official figures from Automatic Data Processing Inc. showed private-sector U.S. employment rose by 157,000 in June. Analysts had expected job growth to reach 60,000 for the month. The U.S. economy added 36,000 jobs the previous month.

In a separate release the U.S. Labor Department announced that jobless claims for the week ending July 2 fell by 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 418,000, slightly better than economist’s forecast of a 424,000 decline.

The encouraging labor figures gave a boost to New York stocks with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.74%, the Nasdaq Composite Index climbing 1.36% and the S&P 500 advancing 1.05%.

The greenback was down against the pound with GBP/USD adding 0.06% to 1.5974.

Earlier Thursday, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet announced that the bank would be suspending minimum credit rating requirements for Portuguese debt following Moody’s recent downgrade of the country’s rating to junk status.

The dollar was higher against both the yen and the Swiss franc with USD/JPY adding 0.01% to hit 81.25 and USD/CHF lifted 0.06% to hit 0.8450.

The greenback was mixed against its Canadian, Australian and New Zealand counterparts with USD/CAD down 0.05% to hit 0.9590, AUD/USD down 0.07% to hit 1.0767 and NZD/USD higher by 0.15% to hit 0.8321.

The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was down 0.03% to 75.19.

On Friday, the U.S. Labor Department was to announce nonfarm payrolls for the month of June including from the public sector. Market expectation were of a 115,000 rise in jobs and for the U.S. unemployment rate to remain unchanged at 9.1%.

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