The US labour market is not slowing

Forex Signals Brief for March 10: All Loaded for the NFP Report Today

Posted Friday, March 10, 2023 by
Skerdian Meta • 2 min read

Yesterday’s Market Wrap

Yesterday’s calendar was light, with no major economic releases, leaving traders to focus on today’s NFP data. Mixed tones prevailed across most markets, with the USD weakening and equities softening, while the bond market was more mixed. European bond yields remained strong, while short-end Treasury yields such as the 2-year and 5-year bonds were lower while longer period bonds were slightly higher.

The USD struggled, with most currencies surging higher by nearly 1% on the day. Risk currencies were also bullish and the higher unemployment claims weighed the USD further. The market is starting to ignore the more hawkish comments from the FED chair earlier this week and is beginning to wonder if it has gone too far with expectations of a hawkish FED.

Today’s Market Expectations

Today the economic calendar is heavy, having started with the Bank of Japan meeting which held interest rates unchanged as expected, although inflation has been starting to creep in Japan as well. The UK GDP report for January showed a slight improvement after the 0.5% contraction in December. Later in the US session, we have the employment report from Canada which is expected to show an increase in the unemployment rate. In the US, the unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 3.4%, while non-farm payrolls are expected to cool off to 224K in February after a massive surge to 517K in January.

Forex Signals Update   

Yesterday there was a bit more volatility but overall the price action remained slow across most markets, with the USD continuing to slide lower, following Powell’s comments from Wednesday. We continued with the positive performance with three trading signals opened, all of which closed in profit.

Playing Both Sides in [[Gold]

Gold was declining since Monday after retracing higher for about a week, with the bearish momentum being quite strong, sending XAU around $40 lower from $1,950 to $1,910. But yesterday though we saw a surge higher as the USD continued to weaken and we opened a buy Gold signal which closed in profit. The surge stopped at moving averages and we decided to reverse the trade, opening a sell signal.

XAU/USD – 60 minute chart 

Will MAs Hold for EUR/GBP?

EUR/GBP turned bullish since early last week and pushed above 0.89 in two bullish waves. Although, yesterday this pair retreated as the GBP was making some decent gains again the USD while the gains in EUR/USD were small. We had a sell forex signal here which closed in profit.

EUR/GBP – H4 chart

Cryptocurrency Update

It seems like cryptocurrencies are in a retreating period now, after being bullish since early January. In the previous two months, we have seen some decent bullish price action in the crypto market, pushing BTC above $25,000, which was a good sign that the crypto winter might be over. But buyers have been unable to hold gains and this week the price in most crypto coins has been slipping lower.

The Slippery Slope Resumes for BITCOIN

Bitcoin has been retreating in the last two weeks, after being bullish since early January. The price slipped lower after buyers failed to hold gains above $25,000, but it was consolidating around $23,000 for several days. Yesterday though, the retreat resumed after Powell’s comments, which hurt risk sentiment.

BTC/USD – 240 minute chart

MAs Keeping ETHEREUM Down

Ethereum pushed above moving averages in January which soon turned into support, especially the 200 SMA (purple). But, buyers are having difficulties at the resistance zone below $1,800 and last week sellers pushed the price below the 50 daily SMA. So, let’s see if the 200 SMA will hold again now.

ETH/USD – H4 chart 
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