Even if it has lost a lot of its allure and significance these days, markets are still hard-wired to treat the US non-farm payrolls as a major event.
Things are fairly slow as we look towards European trading today, with the focus turning to the jobs report coming up later. The dollar is little changed but continues to come under heavy pressure across the board. USD/JPY is on the brink of touching 135.00 with its 200-day moving average at 134.49 also in sight:
Wall Street put on a more mixed showing after the strong gains on Wednesday, and US futures are looking fairly more tepid so far today. S&P 500 futures are down 8 points, or 0.2%, currently but the cash market continues to keep above the 200-day moving average at 4,048 at the very least.
In the bond market, there was another rally in Treasuries which sent 10-year yields down to near 3.50% yesterday and that put the focus on its 100-day moving average at 3.48%. That is now the big level to watch in the sessions ahead in gauging what the bond market has in stored for us next and how that will impact broader market sentiment.
For now, it looks like we may be in for more of a tentative period before things pick up again after the US non-farm payrolls is out of the way.
