EUR/USD Continues Gradual Decline After Positive Surprise from NFP

Despite weak US employment data from Automatic Data Processing released on Wednesday, today’s nonfarm payrolls provided a positive surprise, showing a much better employment growth than economists were anticipating. Yet that did not have a long-lasting impact on EUR/USD. The currency pair quickly bounced after the initial plunge caused by the report and simply continued the gradual decline it has been demonstrating previously. It looks like the pair has found a floor, considering that the price has been moving sideways at the end of the trading session.

US nonfarm payrolls surged by 379k in February, beating the consensus estimate of an increase by 197k by a wide margin. Furthermore, the previous month’s increase got a positive revision from a terrible figure of 49k to a reasonable 166k. And on top of that, unemployment rate unexpectedly fell from 6.3% to 6.2%. Average hourly earnings rose by 0.2%, in line with expectations. The previous month’s increase got a negative revision from 0.2% to 0.1%. (Event A on the chart.)

Trade balance deficit widened a bit to $68.2 billion in January from $67.0 billion in December, matching analysts’ forecasts. (Event A on the chart.)

Consumer credit fell by $1.3 billion in January. That was a total surprise to experts who were expecting a decent increase of $11.8 billion. Furthermore, the December gain got a negative revision from $9.7 billion to $8.8 billion. (Event B on the chart.)

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