US Dollar finishes the week strong in forex trading. Canadian employment drops in July. | CountingPips Forex & Currency Trading Blog

August 8, 2008 - Forex Economic News

US Dollar finishes the week strong in forex trading. Canadian employment drops in July.

The U.S. dollar continued its recent rise in the forex markets by finishing off this week in strong fashion as the "buck" has advanced against all the major currencies. The dollar has reached its highest exchange rate against the euro today since February 27th of this year a day after the European Central Bank kept its interest rate unchanged. The ECB USD gains in Forex Market. comments from yesterday, highlighting the economic slowdown occurring in the eurozone, have given much speculation that the next interest rate decision may be a rate reduction instead of a rate increase only one month after raising the eurozone interest rate to 4.25%.

The dollar has advanced verses the euro for the fourth consecutive weekly close and is poised to take the EUR/USD currency pair under the 1.5000 dollars per euro level after reaching a record of 1.6038 on July 15th.

The American currency has also gained against the Swiss franc for the fourth consecutive weekly close as the USD/CHF has gone from approximately 1.0161 to 1.0829 in that time frame. The USD/CHF is at its highest level since February. Against the British pound sterling, the dollar increased to a 17-month high today as the GBP/USD traded below 1.9420 and marked its third straight weekly gain verses the pound.

Verses the Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and New Zealand dollar, the U.S. dollar has gained against each for three consecutive weekly closes. The Japanese yen has lost ground to the dollar this week after a gain last week but the USD/JPY pair has advanced this week to an exchange rate of over 110.25 yen per dollar for the first time since December 27th of 2007.

Friday's economic roundup - Canadian employment drops in July.

Canadian employment fell more than expected in economic news released today by Statistics Canada. Canadian employment fell by an estimated 55,000 workers in the month of July after showing a milder decrease of 5,000 workers in June. Despite employment numbers for July, the Canadian unemployment rate decreased to 6.1 percent as many youths left the job market. The decrease in jobs in July caught economic forecasts by surprise as a rise of 5,000 jobs was expected. Canadian employment has gained 227,000 jobs over the last year and is up by 1.3 percent overall from July 2007. Average hourly wages continued to climb in Canada as the annual rate in July was a 4.0 percent gain. Hourly wages have gained at over a 4 percent annual rate in growth for eleven months in a row.

News out of Europe today showed that the Switzerland unemployment rate stayed virtually unchanged in July at 2.5 percent, maintaining a six year low point according to a government report released today. The preliminary Gross Domestic Product report out of Italy showed that GDP fell 0.3 percent in the 2nd quarter of this year according to ISTAT. The 2nd quarter year-over-year GDP was unchanged. The 1st quarter showed a 0.5 percent increase in GDP and a year-over-year increase of 0.3 percent. The 2nd quarter fall in GDP was below market forecasts that were expecting a preliminary GDP of 0.0 percent or no change.

U.S. economic news released today by the Department of Labor showed that nonfarm productivity increased by 2.2 percent in the 2nd quarter after a 2.6 percent increase in the 1st quarter and that unit labor costs increased by 1.1 percent in the 2nd quarter after a rise of 2.2 percent in the 1st quarter. A separate Census Bureau report showed that wholesale inventories rose by 1.1 percent in June after a 0.8 percent rise in May.

GBP/USD Chart - The pound sterling fell against the U.S. dollar today in forex trading to a 17-month low(4H chart). The dollar has closed higher against the pound for the third straight week.

Forex Chart

tags: forex trading, dollar gains, economic news, employment

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