The USD is mixed ahead of the US jobs report
Today, both the US and Canada will release their jobs data for the month of November and as traders await the data, the CHF is the strongest and the NZD is the weakest. The USD is mixed ahead of it's report (est. 475K new jobs, unemployment rate of 6.8%, earnings up 0.1%) with gains vs the NZD, AUD and JPY and declines vs the EUR, GBP and CHF. Brexit negotiations continue with issues still left to overcome, but hope for a deal this weekend still a possibility (or so they say), with a vote of member countries still to overcome.
Looking at the ranges and changes, the GBPUSD (as usual) leads the ranges at 82 pips but is only up 21 pips after being lower earlier in the session in volatile down and up choppy trading. The other currencies vs. the USD only have low to high trading ranges of 39 pips or less with the USDCAD (ahead of their jobs report with expectations of +20K net change in employment and 9.0% unemployment rate) only having a 26 pips trading range so far today. However, the USDCAD is trading near the lowest level of the year and the lowest level since October 2018. The USDCHF is trading near the lows and continues its move to the new lows since January 2015 for that pair. The EURUSD did squeak out (but only by 3 pips) a new high going back to 2018, by taking out the high price from yesterday at 1.21740.
In other markets:
- Spot gold is trading up $2 or 0.11% at $1843.20.
- Spot silver is trading up $0.19 or 0.8% at $24.25.
- WTI crude oil futures are trading up $0.43 or 0.94% at $46.07 after the OPEC+ deal to raise production by 0.5M starting in January.
- Bitcoin is trading down $463 to $19,000 even. The low price reached $18,700. The high price reached $19,556.30.
In the premarket for US stocks, the major indices are higher (as implied by the futures contracts)
- Dow industrial average up 98 points
- S&P index up 9.9 points
- NASDAQ up 27 points
In the European equity markets, the major indices are mostly higher:
- German DAX, unchanged
- France's CAC, +0.3%
- UK's FTSE 100, +0.8%
- Spain's Ibex, +0.3%
- Italy's FTSE MIB, +0.7%
In the US debt market, yields are higher with the yield curve steepening. The 2 – 10 year spread is up 277.18 basis points from 75.77 basis points at the close yesterday. The 10 year yield is at 0.925% and remains below the 1.0% level.
In the European debt market, the benchmark yields are mostly lower with the exception being the UK where the 10 year yield is up a -0.6 basis points
