Dollar continues to stay in tight range against most major currencies as traders await employment report from US. Non-farm payroll is expected to show 200k growth in September. Unemployment rate is expected to be unchanged at 5.1% while average hourly earnings are expected to rise 0.2% mom. The pre-NFP job data were solid but unspectacular. ADP report showed decent growth of 200k in private sector jobs in August, up from prior month's 186k. Employment component of ISM manufacturing dropped to 50.5 from 51.2, hitting the lowest level since April. The four week moving average of initial jobless claims was relatively unchanged, down fro 275k to 271k. Continuing claims dropped slightly from 2.26m to 2.19m. Conference board consumer confidence, on the other hand, jumped to 103.0, highest since January. Today's NFP would likely show solid data and pave another step for Fed's rate hike in December.
Talking about Fed, Richmond Fed president Jeffrey Lacker said that a rate hike in October is still possible. He noted that, "we will have another labour market report. Presumably that will move us further toward labour market improvement." Meanwhile, "it looks like consumers have continued to spend in August despite all of the turmoil and it seems like that is carrying over into September." San Francisco Fed president John Williams noted there were no signs the global risks had gotten worse. And Williams reported the call for rate hike "some time later this year".
In Eurozone, ECB president Mario Draghi said that "the progress achieved over the past three years to stabilize and strengthen the euro area is real." And he expressed the optimism that "growth is returning" and "the way forward is well identified". He didn't comment on monetary policies. Meanwhile, he noted that "further integration is necessary to extract all the economies of scale and scope that our union brings."
Elsewhere, Japan unemployment rate rose to 3.4% in August. Household spending rose 2.9% yoy in August. Monetary base rose 35.1% yoy in September. Australia retail sales rose 0.4% in August. UK PMI construction and Eurozone PPI will be released later today.