The Dollar maintains overnight's gain as markets are waiting for two important events ahead of the long weekend in US. The non-farm payroll report from US today could be market moving. Economists are expecting the report to show 210k growth in the job market in June. Unemployment is expected to be unchanged at 6.3%. The ADP private report showed a strong 281k growth in June, which is positive for the NFP. The employment component of ISM manufacturing was unchanged from prior month at 52.8. Meanwhile the four-week moving of initial claims rose slightly from 312k to 314k but the continuing claims dropped from 2.63m to 2.59m. Overall, the leading indicators for NFP suggests that we would likely have a slightly stronger than expected number today. US will also release ISM services, trade balance and jobless claims.
Another key event is ECB rate decision and press conference. It is widely expected that the ECB would stand on the sideline in July. Policymakers would take more time to assess the impacts of the stimulus package announced last month. President Draghi would mainly focus on providing more details on the design and expected impact of the measures announced in the June meeting and probably the preparatory work on small scale asset purchases (ABS). However, with the Eurozone's inflation staying at recession level, policymakers are obliged to take more actions going forward.
Economic data to be released from Europe include Eurozone PMI services final, retail sales. The more important data would be UK services PMI. The EUR/GBP breached recent support at 0.7958 after strong PMI manufacturing and construction released from UK earlier this week. We'd look for more strength in the pound should today's data provide an upside surprise. Economists expected UK services PMI to drop slightly from 58.6 to 58.1 in June.
Released earlier today, Australia retail sales dropped -0.5% mom in May versus expectation of 0.3% mom. Building approvals rose 9.9% mom in May versus expectation of 3.5% mom. Aussie was hammered down by RBA governor Steven's comments. Stevens said that Aussie's exchange rate is "overvalued" and is set to fall significantly, "not by just a few cents". He noted that "when judged against current and likely future trends in the terms of trade, and Australia’s still high costs of production relative to those elsewhere in the world, most measurements would say it is overvalued, and not by just a few cents."