Forex Update: US Dollar mostly higher after ADP Employment Report shows gain of 13K jobs

By CountingPips.com

The US dollar has been gaining against most of the major currencies today in the forex markets following the worse than expected ADP employment report. The dollar has risen on the day versus the British pound sterling, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar and the Canadian dollar while trading lower against the euro and the Swiss franc in the a.m. of the US trading session. The dollar currently trades close to unchanged against the Japanese yen.

US stock markets, after a major down day yesterday, have been a bit higher at time of writing with the Dow Jones industrial average up by about 15 points while the NASDAQ and S&P 500 have edged higher by about 10 points and 4 points, respectively. Oil has edged down very slightly while gold has increased by almost $3 dollars to trade at the $1244.60 level.

The ADP private employment report released today showed that companies added a total of 13,000 workers in the month of June. This follows a revised increase of 57,000 workers added in May and marks the fifth straight monthly increase for private employers. Despite the increase, market forecasters and economists were looking for a gain of approximately 60,000 jobs in the month of June.

Leading the way in job creation in June was the service sector which registered an increase of 30,000 workers while the goods-producing sector showed a decrease of 17,000 workers. Manufacturing jobs rose by 16,000 workers for the month but was offset by a decrease in the construction sector by 35,000 workers. The financial sector also shed 10,000 workers in June.

Large businesses added 3,000 workers in June while medium-size businesses added 11,000 workers. Small businesses or companies with less than 50 workers saw employment payrolls fall by 1,000 for the month.

The market-moving US nonfarm government payroll report is scheduled to be released on Friday at 12:30 GMT. Last month this report showed 431,000 workers were added to payrolls and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.7% although temporary census workers provided a huge boost to the data and private job creation was disappointing. Early forecasts are looking for the payrolls report to decline by 110,000 workers and the unemployment rate to increase back up to 9.8%.

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