By Alfred Romann
Investing.com – The dollar was steady on Friday morning in Asia ahead of the release of U.S. jobs data that could shed some light on the quality of the economic recovery.
The US dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies was flat at 92.47 by 10:23 PM ET (2:23 AM GMT).
The dollar has gained some ground against other main currencies like the euro in recent days but “my main scenario is for the dollar to fall, for stocks to rise and for yields to fall because the Fed is expected to stick with low interest rates,” Junichi Ishikawa, senior foreign exchange strategist at IG Securities in Japan, told Reuters.
Data on non-farm payrolls out on Friday in the U.S. could shed some light on the strength of the economic recovery there. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported initial jobless claims fell to 881,000 for the week to Aug. 28, lower than forecasts of 950,000.
The USD/JPY pair inched up 0.01% to 106.18. On Wednesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga declared his candidacy to lead the Liberal Democratic Party and succeed outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The USD/CNY pair edged down 0.03% to 6.8417. The Chinese currency is up about 5% against the greenback since May. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) set the daily reference rate for the yuan at 6.8359 compared to 6.8319 on Thursday.
“A stronger yuan would help China diversify away from the dollar and optimize its resource allocation,” HSBC’s director and senior foreign-exchange strategist Wang Ju told Bloomberg.
The AUD/USD pair edged down 0.01% to 0.7270 and the NZD/USD pair inched down 0.10% to 0.6704.
The GBP/USD pair was up 0.03% to 1.3285.
On Thursday, both Japan and China released purchasing managers' index (PMI) figures for August with slight dips. Japan’s August services PMI came in at 45, slightly below July’s 45.4. China’s Caixin services PMI for August was 54 against July’s 54.1.