By: Barbara Zigah
In the first day of trading in the New Year, the U.S. Dollar slid from a 4-month peak versus the Japanese Yen, but managed to hold steady against other currencies as investors turn their sights to U.S. economic data to be released later this week.
As reported at 1:10 p.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the U.S. Dollar slipped to 92.90 Yen, off of the 93.15 Yen high established on the EBS trading platform on Thursday, and the highest trade since early September. However, the U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the U.S. currency’s performance versus a basket of six major currencies, traded at 78.060 .DXY, an increase of .3%. The greenback moved up against the single currency Euro, trading at $1.4825, a loss of .3% from Thursday’s New York trading.
On Friday, the U.S. labor report will release its non-farm payroll data. A Reuters’ poll of economists suggests that the report will show that 20,000 jobs were shed in December, significantly higher than the 11,000 job losses the previous month. Last week, new claims for unemployment relief benefits fell unexpectedly to the lowest point in nearly 17 months. Today, market players will watch for the manufacturing index, and analysts expect that the numbers will have edged up slightly from 53.6 to 54.0 for November.
U.S. Dollar Off of a 4-month Peak versus Yen, Holds Steady on Majors
After working on Wall Street, Barb began her second career as a freelance writer at Daily Forex, where the CEO recognized fresh, untapped potential and was willing to give her a try. She’s never looked back. Since then, she’s worked steadily as a freelance writer and editor in the financial services and Forex-related industry.