Dollar Sinks After Payrolls Miss Hard, Yen Leads the Pack
June NFP came in at 57K versus 110K expected, hammering the dollar and sending gold past $4,100.
June non-farm payrolls just printed a brutal miss — 57,000 jobs versus the 110,000 Wall Street expected. That's not a rounding error, that's a gut-punch. The dollar sold off immediately, bonds caught a bid, and stocks tried to rally. Key word: tried. The moves faded fast in thin pre-holiday trade, leaving everyone a little confused about what just happened.
Here's the weird part. Earlier this week, JOLTS job openings hit a two-year high. Then NFP comes in nearly half of consensus. And the sector dragging it down? Hospitality — right before the World Cup kicks off on US soil. That contradiction is exactly why traders couldn't hold a direction. Nobody wants to be the hero trade on a number this noisy.
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The Fed isn't moving anytime soon off this. A softish jobs number keeps Jerome Powell's crew comfortably on hold. No emergency cuts, no panic hikes. Neutral stays the name of the game. Fed's Daly even flagged "exceedingly strong investment growth" in the US today, so it's not like the wheels are coming off.
Gold is the real headline if you ask your portfolio — up $83 to $4,113. The yen is outperforming everything as Japanese officials appear to be doing some quiet intervention work. USD/JPY bounced from 160.65 back to 161.14, but watch that pair in Friday's skeleton-crew session while America celebrates 250 years. Thin liquidity plus a weak dollar is a recipe for sharp moves.
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