The euro was trading up against the US dollar on Monday. Friday’s US employment figures proved to be unspectacular and gave little support to the greenback. At 173,000 the headline figure for the nonfarm payrolls was firmly at the low end of forecasts.
ECB chair Mario Draghi’s forward assessment for the Eurozone proved to be far more downbeat than markets had expected. In his statement, Draghi predicted that that inflation will remain subdued for “some years” to come and that this is likely to be a threat to future growth in the Eurozone.
Cable continued its bearish trend today pushing down below the 1.53 line. A disappointing outlook on the UK’s service industry was enough to keep the sell orders coming in.
The US dollar was up against the yen, the euro and the Canadian. The greenback edged down against the UK Pound which was oversold following steep declines yesterday.
The US dollar was down more than half of one percent against a basket of currencies. The yen as usual strengthened sharply as a risk-off play. The euro and Canadian also climbed against the dollar but sterling lost ground on disappointing economic data as did most commodity currencies.
GBP/USD was trending lower for much of the day on the back of the figures with few meaningful retracements. Traders were aggressively testing the 1.53 level which was offering tentative support.
Both the euro and sterling took heavy losses as markets withdrew into crisis mode. The VIX, seen as a global barometer of fear in the market spiked overnight for a second time and precipitated a brutal selloff in Sterling and other risk assets.