EUR/usd

The US employment releases are always very informative, this is why commentators very often not only make discrepant forecasts, but also give discrepant interpretation of the results. This time the situation is even more interesting. The two major indexes indicated opposite trends. Actual payrolls coincided with the forecasts, showing the employment increase by 114K. It's remarkable that together with the serious growth, the data for the previous two months were also revised. The seemingly poor August figures were revised from 96K up to 142K and in July, as it turned out, there was a dramatic growth by 181K. Anyway, this quick growth of payrolls is unable to impact the unemployment level. Yet the latter has significantly declined – from 8.3% in July down to 7.8% in September. It's especially striking that these indicators should diverge that much in this time span. It is connected with a different method of statistics counting (household survey instead of payrolls calculation). Households indicated that employment grew by the impressive 873K in September compared to 119K and 192K in July and August respectively. On the whole the markets regarded the current news as moderately positive and the initial market reaction to selling of the dollar and buying of risky assets choked with the wave of euro sell-offs. Already today the dollar has gone above the levels, from where the reaction to the employment statistics began, and the rates of EUR/USD are now below 1.30. The newsfeeds say that the markets look forward to getting the news from another EU summit (aren't journalists tired of highlighting these futile talks yet?). The American stock exchanges, which are treated as indicators of the general demand for risk, hit the highs of mid September on the release of the employment statistics, but soon after reversed down under the pressure of profit taking.

GBP/USD

The market forces again didn't let GBP/USD leave the corridor. The growth since the second half of the week stumbled on the way to 1.62 and afterwards even spilt over into selling, which by now has driven the pair below 1.6090. Stronger sell-offs can be expected on breaking down the level of 1.6065. Though this level is not far away, bears look tired. 

USD/JPY

The Japanese yen remains one of those currencies which can afford to live its own life, but it's not always so. Thus, Friday's data, which initially boosted demand for risky assets, have driven USD/JPY to 78.86. Later the all-round profit taking has brought the pair to the common for the recent days level of 78.50. Most likely, the “herd feeling” of yen-traders won't last for long and they will resume selling the pair, leaving it in the channel even in the case of a possible upward reversal of markets.

gold

The reaction of Gold on Friday and this morning was really impressive. The level of 1790 (this year's high) was held only for a few hours. On the release of the US employment statistics selling of commodity assets, this precious metal included, has become more active. It's not very clear whether it was reaction to the growth of the dollar on the strong employment data or pessimism over the coming meetings in Europe. Neither the former nor the latter can be regarded with confidence as a true reason.