The US dollar gained ground this week, following last week’s losses, with help of domestic macroeconomic indicators, most important of which were non-farm payrolls. At the same time, the performance of the greenback was not as stellar as one might expect considering the circumstances.
As was expected, this week was somewhat mixed for the US currency. While non-farm payrolls, which were far better than even optimistic forecasts, indeed propelled the currency higher, the resulting risk-positive sentiment curbed gains of the dollar. Still, the greenback managed to pare last week’s losses against most currencies.
Among the weakest currencies on the Forex market were the Japanese yen and the Australian dollar. The yen was hurt by the Tankan survey, while the Aussie suffered from poor domestic fundamentals and comments of central bank’s chief.
Meanwhile, the Great Britain pound was the winner as UK macroeconomic indicators continue to support the very optimistic outlook for the currency. The Canadian dollar was also resilient during this week.
EUR/USD dropped from 1.3643 to 1.3593 after touching the weekly high of 1.3699. GBP/USD jumped from 1.7024 to 1.7156, while its weekly high of 1.7179 was highest since October 2008. USD/JPY advanced from 101.37 to 102.06. AUD/USD declined from 0.9411 to 0.9363, retreating from 0.9504 — the strongest prices since November 7. USD/CAD ended the week at 1.0657, somewhat below the opening of 1.0664.
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