Flash: USD on better footing after Payrolls - BTMU

FXStreet (Barcelona) - Lee Hardman, FX Analyst at the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, observes a better tone from the USD post-Payrolls...

Key Quotes

"The US dollar has strengthened only modestly following the release of the stronger than expected US employment report for February. The establishment report revealed that the US economy added 175k jobs in February accelerating from an upwardly revised 129k jobs added in January."

"The report has provided reassurance that the recent slowdown in employment growth is likely mainly driven by the bad weather which will soon begin to ease. Employment growth in February returned to roughly back in line with its average over the last six months of 177k/month."

"In comparison over the last three months the slowdown in employment growth has resulted in average growth over that period of just 129k/month. The household employment report was less favourable revealing that the US economy added only 42k jobs in February although that followed very robust job gains of 638k in January."

"The unemployment rate also ticked higher by 0.1 point to 6.7% in February having stabilized in recent months after falling sharply in the second half of last year. Overall, the employment report should prompt the Fed to continue tapering QE by a further USD10 billion on the 19th March but is not strong enough to prompt the market to bring forward Fed rate hike expectations offering only modest support for the US dollar."