The dollar’s losses against the euro and Swiss franc topped 1 percent before partly recovering, and the dollar index was off almost 0.40 percent after touching its lowest since September 24.
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The U.S. stocks reversed deep losses to end sharply higher on Friday, as investors believed that the possibility for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this year becomes lower following the poor non-farm payroll report.
Bond prices jumped Friday, sending yields down, as investors expected the new sign of weakness in the US would push any interest rate hike further out into the future. It fell as low as 1.91 percent in morning trading, its lowest level since April. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 83 points, or 0.5 percent, to 16,356, while the Nasdaq composite gained 33 points, or 0.7 percent, to 4,660.
“We think there is a potential for a short-term but tradable risk rebound to take place…so we’ve turned quite positive on a few of the currencies that have been under the most pressure recently”, Stannard said, citing the Australian and Canadian dollars. Forecasters polled by MarketWatch (http://www.marketwatch.com/storyno-meta-for-guid) see another 200,000 job gains in September, while the unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 5.1%, a seven-year low.
“It looks like October is clearly off the table”, said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons were down 0.8 percentage point and 1.3 million, respectively. It’s been a confusing theme ever since the Fed cut its benchmark rate to near zero during the financial crisis in 2008, helping to set off a stock-market rally.
Stock gains over the past three days had been a respite for markets rattled by worries that China’s slowdown will stunt global growth and mixed messages on Federal Reserve policy. Futures for the Nadsaq-100 index saw even bigger gains, up 19.25 points, or 0.5%, to 4,206.50. A measure of manufacturing released <strong>Thursdaystrong> showed activity barely grew in September as a broader swath of industries suffered from the effects of a strong dollarstrong> and faltering overseas markets.
Fed speakers: A crop of speakers appear on Friday at a Boston Fed conference on macroprudential regulation.
December gold futures gained two per cent, or $22.90, to US$1,136.60 an ounce. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester appears on a separate panel at 11 a.m. Eastern.
Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer will speak at that same conference at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. The Europe Stoxx 600 were edging higher.
Sprint Corp.(S) shares rose 2% after it announced it could be cutting as much as $2.5 billion in costs. The contract fell 35 cents to close at $44.74 a barrel in New York on Thursday.
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Emerging market currencies such as the Taiwan dollar and Indian rupee strengthened against the U.S. dollar today.
