By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The dollar continued to add to gains Thursday, but could run out of steam on the final day of the trading week should nonfarm payrolls fall short of expectations.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, rose by 0.14% to 90.91.
The "bad news is good news" scenario will likely in play on Friday as any weakness in the jobs report will likely give the Federal Reserve reason to keep the tightening on pause for the longer, pressuring the greenback.
"Should our economist’s projections for a positive but below-consensus nonfarm payroll read prove accurate, we expect the price action in FX to prove broadly negative for the dollar as some of the Fed’s hawkish expectations are scaled back, while the recovery story remains intact," Dutch bank ING said in a note.
ING is forecasting headline nonfarm payrolls to fall within the 550,00-to-600,000 range, below consensus by about 110,000.
Norwegian Korna, Canadian dollar, or CAD and New Zealand dollar, or NZD will likely be the winners from any potential dollar weakness.
Oil exporting pairs like NOK and CAD are expected to receive an added boost from rising oil prices amid reports that OPEC+ might be opting for a slightly lower-than-expected supply increase of 400,000 barrels per day rather than 500,000 initially expected.