US Dollar Suffers From Terrible Nonfarm Payrolls

The US dollar fell against other major currencies, including the Great Britain pound and the Japanese yen, today after the non-farm payrolls showed that job creation in the US stalled. The currency also slipped against the euro, but later rebounded.

US non-farm payrolls showed no employment growth in August. That’s much worse than the market expectations (growth by 74,000) and the worst reading since September 2010, when employment declined by 95,000. Average hourly earnings dropped 0.1 percent, while markets counted on an increase by 0.2 percent. The poor economic report renewed speculations that the Federal Reserve needs third round of asset purchases, known as quantitative easing, to bolster the economic recovery in the United States.

The Dollar Index managed to rise 0.3 percent to 74.683 today from 74.479 yesterday. The dollar trimmed losses versus the pound and the yen, as well as rebounded versus the euro. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index plunged as much as 2.3 percent.

GBP/USD climbed from 1.6177 to 1.6253 before trading at 1.6220 as of 19:40 GMT today. USD/JPY fell from 76.91 to 76.80 and touched low of 76.52 intraday. Meanwhile, EUR/USD tumbled from 1.4257 to 1.4199.

If you have any questions, comments or opinions regarding the US Dollar, feel free to post them using the commentary form below.