Investing.com - The dollar firmed up against the other major currencies on Monday, coming off the lows hit on Friday in the wake of a softer-than-expected U.S. jobs report for July.
The dollar slid lower on Friday after official data showed that that the U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in July, below forecasts for jobs growth of 233,000.
Although it was the sixth successive month that the U.S. economy added more than 200,000 jobs, the unemployment rate unexpectedly ticked up to 6.2% from 6.1% in June. In addition, wage growth was flat, pointing to underlying slack in the economy.
The data prompted investors to curtail expectations on the timing of a possible rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
EUR/USD eased down 0.08% to 1.3419, off Friday’s highs of 1.3443. The pair remained supported above the eight month lows of 1.3366 reached last Wednesday.
The single currency turned lower as investors turned their attention to a policy meeting by the European Central Bank on Thursday.
Data late last week showed that the annual rate of inflation in the euro area slowed to 0.4% in July, adding to pressure on the bank to implement measures to avert the risk of deflation in the region.
The dollar was little changed against the yen, with USD/JPY at 102.61, not far from the almost four month highs of 103.07 set last Wednesday, while USD/CHF was almost flat at 0.9064.
Sterling eased back from one-and-a-half month lows, with GBP/USD edging up 0.07% to 1.6833.
The pound showed little reaction earlier Monday after data showed that activity in the U.K. construction sector slowed last month.
The U.K. construction purchasing managers’ index slowed to 62.4 from 62.6 in June, but was slightly ahead of expectations for a reading of 62.0. The overall pace of growth was still the fastest since 2007.
The commodity linked Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars were all little changed, with AUD/USD at 0.9314, NZD/USD at 0.8510 and USD/CAD trading at 1.0921.
The US Dollar Index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, edged up 0.06% to 81.44, off last week’s 10-month peaks of 81.66.