Today it’s all about the US jobs report which could enhance the US dollar ultimately which has tended to weaken substantially over the course of recent months. Even as European investors have begun the day with moderate losses, they have managed to get back to gains, those are not impressive though.

As far as the currency market is concerned, the Australian dollar continues retaining its appeal following a stronger than expected retail sales reading. Australian retail sales turned out to be better than expected showing an increase 0.3% mom against a forecast at 0.2% mom. Moreover, in terms of a quarterly basis there was even a more impressive reading as we got a rise 1.5% qoq while an estimate suggested just 1.2% qoq.

There is no doubt that most of attention will be on the US jobs report today. Albeit, the Canadian data will be released at the same time. Canadian employment growth, which has been on a torrid pace with about 100,000 jobs added over May and June, is expected to show a pronounced slowdown when figures for July are released Friday. Besides, there is the data which could matter for oil prices. Let us present the full tally of macroeconomic events scheduled for today.

The US employment report draws most of market attention each month. It will be similarly today where the official consensus indicates that employers could have added 180k new jobs in July compared with 222k seen last month. However, an employment change is not so important on its own, market participants will pay a close attention to wage growth which remains crucial with regard to inflation trends in the US economy. In order to be better geared up for trading in the afternoon, we encourage you to familiarize with our preview ahead of the NFP.

At the end, we would like to present a recommendation coming from Morgan Stanley for the CHFJPY currency pair.