Investing.com - The U.S. dollar moved higher against the Japanese yen in U.S. trade Friday, aided by better than expected U.S. labor returns and market instability provided by a ratings downgrade for Spain and Italy.
In afternoon U.S. trade USD/JPY hit 76.91, the pair’s highest since Tuesday; the pair subsequently consolidated at 76.80, rising 0.12%.
The pair was likely to find support at 76.10, the low of September 22, and resistance at 77.27, Monday’s high.
On Friday, Fitch Ratings cut Italy’s credit score to A-plus from AA-minus and Spain’s rating to AA-minus from AA-plus, citing “intensification of the euro area crisis and risks to the fiscal consolidation effort arising from the budgetary performance of some regions.”
Wall Street shares reversed course after the Fitch’s downgrades. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.48% to 11,069.48, the Nasdaq Composite Index gave up 1.29% to 2,474.57 and the S&P 500 was lower by 1.12% at 1,151.94.
Earlier Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that non-farm payrolls rose to a seasonally adjusted 103,000 in September, up from 57,000 the previous month. Market expectations were for non-farm payrolls to rise to 53,000 for the period.
Separately, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. unemployment rate remained unchanged in September at a seasonally adjusted 9.1%, in line with market expectations.
Meanwhile, the yen moved higher against both the euro and the British pound with EUR/JPY down 0.25% to hit 102.82, and GBP/JPY rising 0.78% to hit 119.41.
The Japanese market was scheduled to close Monday for a national holiday.