Dollar index back to 12-year high on non-farm sector jobs boost
The greenback rallied across the board on Friday after data showed non-farm sector added more employees than expected pushing unemployment rate further lower.
US dollar index, the gauge that measures the trade-weighted strength of the dollar against a basket of six major currencies, rose to 92.49 moving off day's low of 91.98.
The index was down through Asian and European session on Friday, moving off Thursday's 12-year high of 92.53, as FOMC member Narayana Kocherlakota said raising US interest rates this year would hinder a recovery in inflation.
The NFP addition in December was 252,000, down from 353,000 in November, but beating market estimates of 240,000. The jobless rate dropped to 5.6% from 5.8% when the consensus was for 5.7%.
EUR/USD fell to 1.1762 from 1.1820 following the data while GBP/USD dropped to 1.5097 from 1.5160.
Sterling had distanced to as high as 1.5172 earlier in Friday, off the 17-month low of 1.5034. The trend after the US data shows that the UK currency is headed to new lows.
Similarly the common currency that had moved up to 1.1833 prior to the NFP release from the nine-year low of 1.1754 hit in the previous session is on the way to new multi-year lows.
December consumer price data from UK, Germany, eurozone and the US will be most important calendar events next week which will be specially watched in the wake of the latest US labour market numbers and ahead of the 22 January rate review by the European Central Bank.
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