Investing.com - The dollar held steady against a basket of other major currencies on Monday, as investors locked in profits from the greenback's recent rally following upbeat U.S. employment data and as trading was expected to remain quiet with no major U.S. economic reports to be released.
The dollar strengthened broadly after the Labor Department reported on Friday that the U.S. economy added 280,000 jobs in May, ahead of economists forecast for 220,000. The unemployment rate ticked up to 5.5% from 5.4% in the previous month.
April’s payrolls report was revised to show that 221,000 jobs were created.
Hourly earnings increased 0.3% in May, after a 0.2% increase in April.
The upbeat data, particularly the pick-up in wage growth underlined the view that the economy is on track to rebound after a weak first quarter and bolstered expectations that the Federal Reserve could start to hike interest rates at its September policy meeting.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was steady at 96.36, down from highs of 96.95 hit on Friday.
EUR/USD was up 0.08% to 1.1120 after official data showed that German industrial production rose 0.9% in April, exceeding expectations for a 0.5% gain. The change in industrial production for March was revised to 0.4% downtick from a previously estimated 0.5% fall.
But investors remained cautious as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker urged Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras over the weekend to come up with alternative economic reforms "swiftly" so that negotiations could continue this week.
Athens delayed a key debt payment to the International Monetary Fund on Friday after Tsipras rejected the proposed reforms put forward by the EC as “absurd”.
USD/JPY slipped 0.23% to 125.29 after rising to 13-year highs of 125.84 on Friday.
Data on Monday showed that Japan’s gross domestic product was revised up to an annualized 3.9% in the first quarter from an initial estimate of 2.4% growth. Japan’s economy expanded by a revised 1.0% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, compared with a preliminary reading of 0.6%.
The pound and the Swiss franc were lower, with GBP/USD down 0.26% to 1.5232 and with USD/CHF adding 0.16% to 0.9407.
The Australian and New Zealand dollars were stronger, with AUD/USD up 0.20% to 0.7637 and with NZD/USD gaining 0.37% to 0.7068.
Meanwhile, USD/CAD held steady at 1.2438.