Current Market Sentiment‏: Risk Appetite Weakened By Weak US NFPs

The risk appetite is still depressed by the weak US non-farm payrolls of March which added 88k new jobs while they were expected to be up to 200k from 236k in February, which had been revised up to 268k. The US major indexes are still in the red territory while the greenback is still under pressure versus the single currency which could have a place again above 1.30 after yesterday's rising following Draghi’s comments which ensured that there is no way to use Cyprus rescue plan as a template in other euro zone countries.

The British pound could get over 1.5259 resistance versus the greenback easily after this data which underscored the weakness of the US labor market. The private sector has also added lower than expected numbers by only 158k jobs while the market was waiting for 200k. Also US initial jobless claim of the week ending on the 31st rose back to 385k after spending 5 weeks below 360k - 5 of them were below 350k. This highlight what has been said by Bernanke, that the rebound of the labor market is need to demonsrtate that it’s not temporary.

The greenback has also come under pressure versus the Japanese yen but the bargain hunters do not hesitate to get along with it at any bottom they see and this time it was at 95.74. It has been pushed back up to get over 97 again despite the risk aversion following this dovish figure with the current unprecedented ultra easing stance of BOJ.

But the greenback could rise versus the Canadian dollar following this data in a reverse of what has been done with the release of the February report as it was disappointing this time, with a loss of 54.4k jobs in March after adding 50.7k in February.

But it was not easy to it to get over 1.0235 resistance versus the Canadian dollar as Mar Canadian Ivey PMI seasonally adjusted figure rose up to 61.6 from 51.1 while the consensus was rising for 52.4.