The previous week turned out to be quite positive both for the stock markets and the US dollar, which received significant support in the currency market against major currencies and not only to them.
For the last week, stock markets were actively recovering – first on the wave of normalization in the US, where regulators began to actively hold speculative trading in the stock markets through social networks, and then on the wave of positive corporate reporting of companies for the 4th quarter of last year. It was a really strong rally, which further intensified on Friday amid extremely negative employment data from the US Department of Labor. Despite this, investors continue to ignore all the existing negativity and focus on the future.
According to the data presented, the US economy only added 49,000 new jobs in January, instead of the forecasted 50,000. The December figures were also revised down to 227,000. The only positive data was unemployment, which declined from 6.7% to 6.3%.
Traders of the stock market clearly perceived this news as positive. It seems odd that extremely bad data is rated as positive, but there is nothing unusual here. Since the global crisis of 2008-09, the world Central Banks, and the FRS is the first among them, began to pump the economies of their countries with huge amounts of liquidity, which was actually somewhere near zero rates both in the United States and Eurozone. This caused an increase in demand for risky assets, which led to inflation of financial bubbles. So now, in view of negative labor market data, investors believe that this situation will force the US Congress to meet J. Biden halfway and fully accept his proposed stimulus measures in the amount of $ 1.9 trillion.
In the currency market, the rate of the US dollar stopped rising against the background of negative employment figures. However, it is likely to be temporary, as the growth in the yields on US Treasury bonds has not stopped. Today, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury resumed its growth and added 1.510% in the morning, to 1.188%.
We believe that the upward dynamics will continue and support the dollar rate as long as the yield growth does not turn down. In this situation, the correlation that has developed over the past years between the dynamics of the dollar exchange rate and the stock market in the United States, when they moved in different directions, will stop. Thus, we will observe an increase in demand for stocks with a simultaneous increase in the US dollar.
Forecast of the day:
The GBP/USD remains in the range of 1.3750-1.3630. It is possible to sell the pair after it declines below the level of 1.3715, with a likely further decline to 1.3595.
The USD/JPY pair is at the level of 105.50 again. It is expected to further rise to 106.00.
