US NFP release in focus for today – ING

The highlight of today’s session will be the 1430CET release of the delayed NFP jobs report. We will receive job hiring updates for both October and November, ING’s FX analyst Chris Turner notes.

November jobs expected to rise modestly

“The consensus is for a modest +50k jobs increase for November and a rise in the unemployment rate to 4.5%. There will be no unemployment rate for October. Numbers in line with consensus will not have too much bearing on the Fed policy debate, where the market is close to pricing the next 25bp Fed cut by April and a further one by September.”

“We do note, however, that US money markets have fallen after the Fed announced its generous T-bill buying plans last week, and that is allowing three-month dollar hedging costs to drop to levels last seen in September 2022. There’s also US October retail sales data today and the S&P PMIs. These look like an unlikely source of dollar volatility.”

“Strong interest in EM is normally a mild dollar negative. And with seasonal factors in play, we favour some mild dollar weakening into year-end as long as the NFP data does not surprise heavily on the upside. Below 98.00, DXY could edge to 97.80. To the upside, 98.80 looks intraday resistance.”