What you need to know on Friday, January 21:
The dollar traded soft on Thursday, ending the day mixed on the FX board. The EUR was among the weakest, while the AUD and CAD were the strongest.
Disappointing US jobs-related figures were behind broader dollar weakness at the start of the US session as weekly jobless claims unexpectedly rose to 286K in the week ending January 7, the highest reading since late October. Like most major developed economies, US workers and businesses are struggling with Omicron-related outages.
The US Federal Reserve is relying on what it calls “the labor market near full employment” to accelerate an aggressive reduction in its financial support to control inflation. The unexpected rise in jobless claims may be just one exception, but if it continues to rise, the Fed may need to take a break. The central bank will hold a monetary policy meeting next week and will release the result on Wednesday, January 26.
US Treasury yields are flat on the day, with the 10-year Treasury yield at 1.83%. Stocks, on the other hand, managed to advance, with all US indices trading higher towards the close, although they pulled back from intraday highs.
The EUR/USD pair is trading around 1.1310, while GBP/USD is hovering around 1.1620. The AUD/USD pair reached a high of 0.7276, now trading around 0.7240, while the USD/CAD stands at 1.2474. The USD/JPY pair is marginally lower at around 114.15.
Gold is ending the day largely unchanged around $1,840 a troy ounce, but managed to hit a fresh two-month high of $1,847.92 a troy ounce. Crude oil prices meanwhile surged to new multi-year highs, with WTI hitting $87.08 a barrel but ending the day around $85.20.
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