Forex: EUR/USD – Almost unchanged after disappointing US unemployment data

The pair has traded lower today with the dollar retaking some lost ground ahead of the weekly US jobless claims report which came out at 13:30 BST.

So far since the release, the pair has been stable around 1.3050, seemingly mostly unaffected by the disappointing jobless data.

According to the US Department of Labor, first-time applicants for regular state unemployment insurance payments rose by 16,000 last week (w/e July 6) to a seasonally adjusted 360,000, exceeding by a wide margin expectations for 340,000 and well up on the previous week’s adjusted 344,000. Continuing employment insurance claims increased by 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 2.977 million in the week ended June 29, compared to 2.953 million in the previous week (revised).

These indicators of rising unemployment in the United States shed additional light on US Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s remarks yesterday that fiscal stimulus tapering is unlikely to start happening at any time this year.
Meanwhile, the Department of Commerce reported that US import prices rose by 0.2 percent in June y/y, whilst contracting by 0.2 percent month-on-month and missing expectations for 0.5 and zero percent respectively. June’s export prices advanced by 0.8 percent y/y and contracted by 0.1 percent on May’s performance.
The pair has started to fall in the wake of these releases with the USD currently going for 1.3042 per euro.