Dollar is trading in recent range against euro and sterling as focus turns to non-farm payroll report from US today. The greenback gained against swiss franc and yen this week and remains firm. Markets are expecting NFP to show 225k growth in July with unemployment rate unchanged at 5.3%. Wage growth will also be a focus as average hourly earnings are expected to grow 0.2% mom in July. The leading indicators for NFP were mixed. ADP private employment missed expectations and rose only 185k. Employment component of ISM manufacturing also dropped from 55.5 to 52.7. Nonetheless, employment component of ISM non-manufacturing jumped sharply from 52.7 to 59.6. The four week moving average of initial jobless claims also dropped quite notably from 279k to 268k. It's still uncertain whether Fed will hike rate in September and FOMC members will look into today's NFP to find the needed evidence for "some further improvement in labor market" for their decisions.
Stocks weakened ahead of NFP again as DJIA dropped through recent low of 17399.17 and also breached 38.2% retracement of 15855.12 to 18351.36. The 55 days EMA also turned downwards while the index was also rejected well below this EMA. We've pointed out the risk of medium term reversal for some time with bearish divergence condition in daily and weekly MACD. But there was no sustainable selloff so far. The major focus now is whether today's NFP would set the stage for a break of 17037.76 later in the month, of bring the index back to 18351.36.
Looking ahead, Swiss will release unemployment rate and foreign currency reserves in European session. Germany will release industrial production and trade balance. UK will also release trade balance. Meanwhile, Canada will also release job today today, with building permits and Ivey PMI also featured.