EUR/USD moves little after three days of losses, trading around 1.1580 during the Asian hours on Wednesday. The pair may further lose ground as the US Dollar (USD) gains amid declining US Federal Reserve (Fed) rate cut bets for December. The highly anticipated September Nonfarm Payrolls data are scheduled to be released on Thursday.
The CME FedWatch Tool suggests that financial markets are now pricing in a 49% chance that the Fed will cut its benchmark overnight borrowing rate by 25 basis points (bps) at its December meeting, down from 67% probability that markets priced a week ago.
US Initial Jobless Claims showed on Tuesday that 232,000 people filed first-time claims for state unemployment insurance in the week ended October 18. Continuing Claims came in at 1.957 million, up slightly from 1.926 million in the prior week.
Meanwhile, an Automatic Data Processing (ADP) report showed that employers cut 2,500 jobs a week on average during the four weeks ending November 1.
Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin commented on the economic outlook on Tuesday, noting that the labor market appears more balanced, with firms reporting improved worker availability and recent layoffs signalling the need for caution. Barkin said inflation doesn’t seem to be rising, but it’s also unclear whether it will return to the Fed’s 2% target. He emphasized that, without more decisive data, it remains difficult to reach a broad policy consensus.
The Euro (EUR) attempts to hold ground against the US Dollar due to the cautious sentiment surrounding the near-term European Central Bank’s (ECB) monetary policy outlook. The ECB is widely expected to keep rates unchanged, supported by stable economic performance and inflation near target.
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