The US dollar reportedly strengthened during the Good Friday trading session driven by reports of better jobs than economists ’targets. The United States (U.S.) economy managed to record the fastest job growth in seven months and this indirectly pushed U.S. bond yields higher.
Based on a report released by the Department of Labor, the U.S. economy added 916,000 new jobs in March. It was the fastest growth since August and rose from February's figure of just 468,000 jobs.
The unemployment rate fell to 6%, down from 6.2%, in March. This is the lowest unemployment rate in more than a year.
Despite encouraging employment reports, the economy is still far from achieving the impressive performance it had in February last year. Yet the presence of a large -scale federal stimulus package including a $ 1,400 check is to some extent able to ease the burden and boost the economy.
The 10-year bond market rose 0.023% to 1.702% and the one-year bill rose 0.003%. The US dollar index, which measures the greenback, continued to strengthen following the NFP report by 0.2% to the exchange rate of 92.89.
The USD / CAD pair declined 0.01% to 1.2547, from an opening of 1.2548. EUR / USD fell 0.09% to 1.1768, from an opening of 1.778.
