U.S. Update: Non Farm Payrolls

U.S, job losses continued to mount in March and unemployment hit a 25-year high, as employers trimmed 663,000 jobs from their payrolls past March, while as expected, unemployment rate rose to 8.5% This reading represents an accumulated of 5.1 million jobs lost since the beginning of 2008, being 2 million just for the first three months of this year. Also, service industries in the U.S. unexpectedly contracted in March at a faster pace as unemployment climbed and consumer confidence held near a record low. The ISM index of non- manufacturing businesses, which make up almost 90 percent of the economy, fell to 40.8, the lowest level of the year, from 41.6 the prior month.

Dollar remains steady against most majors despite the readings, as U.S. reports are affecting more market sentiments that dollar itself. Risk aversion/ risk appetite is the number one market mover these days, and such a bad reading tends to dismiss investors optimism. Wall Street failed to stay above the 8000 points level after yesterday’s spike above, and at this moment, remains in the red side.

Gbp continues being the strongest currency across the board, helped by the PMI Service index that rose more than expected from 43.2 to 45.5 in March comparing to expectation of 43.5. U.K. Halifax house price dropped -1.9% in March, slightly deeper than expected around -1.8%.

Usd/Jpy overview

Bullish trend in the pair has almost reached the strong descendant trend line coming from the 110.66 highs form past August 15th. Descendant line is around 100.40and will be the key break up point: once the line break is confirmed in daily time frames, long term bias will become clearly bullish, thus, the 100.00 zone seems to be a mayor selling zone still. Come back under 98.20 could send correction deeper, close to the 97.00 zone and delay the continuation, yet does not seem likely at this point. Long term EMA’s are supporting the bullish perspective both in daily and 4 hours charts, despite indicators are a bit exhausted. As mentioned, downside corrections should be short lived, and limited.