U.S. stocks fell on Friday, failing to recover from the previous day’s brutal selloff, after U.S. jobs data pointed to a slow recovery and investors worried about the health of the euro zone’s weakest economies.
This Friday, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said “the unemployment rate fell from 10.0 to 9.7 percent in January, and nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-20,000). Employment in manufacturing was little changed in January. However, Job losses continued in construction, in transportation and warehousing. So overall, the jobs report was mixed which makes it more difficult to gauge its bullish or bearish implications for the dollar exchange rate. That said, I have been long USD/JPY and short EUR/USD for quite some time and I plan to hold those positions open trough out the next few weeks.
