Around 3:40 p.m., the euro gained 0.13% against the greenback, at 1.1266 dollars. But it’s less than at the start of the European session.
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The dollar weakened slightly Thursday against the euro, penalized by a renewed optimism on the markets but slightly supported by data on American employment better than expected.
Around 1:40 p.m. (3:40 p.m. in Paris), the euro gained 0.13% against the greenback, at 1.1266 dollar. But it’s less than at the start of the European session.
The US economy created 4.8 million jobs in June – a month-long record – thanks to the reopening of shops, bars and restaurants, which led to a larger-than-expected drop in unemployment, announced Thursday the Labor Department.
The unemployment rate stood at 11.1% compared to 13.3% in May. Analysts expected a rate of 12.6%.
If the dollar seems to have benefited somewhat from this publication, the reaction of the greenback has been “limited”, pointed Neil Wilson, analyst for Markets.com.
This better-than-expected data may indeed pull the US currency back and forth, depending on whether investors are focusing on the health of the US economy, which would argue for a strengthening of the currency, or on a global situation. overall better. In the latter case, investors will rather abandon safe havens like the dollar and favor risky assets.
The dollar is “once again undermined by renewed optimism regarding the prospects for global recoveries,” said Lee Hardman, analyst for MUFG, earlier today.
The week was dominated by better-than-expected indicators, and according to Bloomberg, the “economic surprise” index, which measures the gap between expectations and actual data, has not been as high since early 2018.
“This clearly underlines that the analysts were too pessimistic,” said Hardman.
Among the good surprises of the week: the recovery of the American manufacturing industry, the improvement in the confidence of American consumers, retail sales in Germany as well as, therefore, the data on American employment.
Another source of optimism mentioned by several analysts is the hope of a vaccine against COVID-19.
The German company BioNTech and the American pharmaceutical laboratory Pfizer announced Wednesday positive preliminary results for their joint project of vaccine.
These results are all the more scrutinized as the pandemic continues to worsen worldwide, with a record of daily cases in the United States.
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