Investing.com - The dollar rose against most major currencies on Monday after investors digested Friday's less-than-stellar October jobs report and determined the numbers were not soft enough to sway the Federal Reserve to keep policy loose for longer to ensure recovery.
In U.S. trading on Monday, EUR/USD was down 0.29% at 1.2419.
The dollar softened on Friday after the Department of Labor reported that the U.S. economy added 214,000 jobs in October, missing expectations for an increase of 231,000.
The U.S. unemployment rate ticked down to a six-year low of 5.8% from 5.9% in September.
While not overwhelmingly disappointing, the less-than-stellar report gave investors room to sell the greenback for profits and take time to rethink when the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates next year.
By Monday, investors snapped up fresh greenback positions on sentiments that the jobs report was strong enough to keep the Fed on track to hike interest rates some time in 2015 considering that the economy continues to add over 200,000 jobs a month save an anomaly here or there.
Meanwhile across the Atlantic, data released earlier revealed that Italian industrial production fell 0.9% in September from August, confounding expectations for a 0.2% gain.
The soft report stoked concerns that Friday’s report on third quarter growth will show that Italy has fallen back into a recession after the economy contracted by 0.2% in the second quarter.
A separate report showed that the Sentix index of euro zone investor confidence improved modestly this month, though it still held close to 18-month lows.
Research group Sentix said its index of investor confidence improved to -11.9 this month from -13.7 in October, which was the lowest since May 2013.
Analysts had expected the index to improve to -6.9.
The dollar was up against the yen, with USD/JPY up 0.27% at 114.90, and up against the Swiss franc, with USD/CHF up 0.24% at 0.9684.
The greenback was up against the pound, with GBP/USD down 0.15% at 1.5849.
The dollar was up against its cousins in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with USD/CAD up 0.47% at 1.1381, AUD/USD down 0.24% at 0.8612 and NZD/USD down 0.14% at 0.7743.
The US dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was up 0.29% at 87.91.