The big news from Friday was the better than expected job figures from the US, strengthening the US dollar sustaining speculation that the Federal Reserve may look to reduce its quantitative easing programme.

Data from the US Labour Department revealed that 175,000 jobs were added in May surpassing an expectation of 170,000. However, despite the expansion of the job market, the unemployment rate increased by 0.1% to 7.6%.

The big news from Friday was the better than expected job figures from the US, strengthening the US dollar sustaining speculation that the Federal Reserve may look to reduce its quantitative easing programme.

Data from the US Labour Department revealed that 175,000 jobs were added in May surpassing an expectation of 170,000. However, despite the expansion of the job market, the unemployment rate increased by 0.1% to 7.6%.

Improving job market conditions could also be seen in the US’s neighbour as Statistics Canada revealed that employment rose in May by 95,000, the most since August 2002, and the unemployment rate fell to 7.1% from 7.2%. Off the high of the day, the pound fell by 2.7 cents against the Canadian dollar following the news.

The euro traded stronger on Friday following a string of better than expected data from Germany. Trade balance data revealed a larger surplus of €17.7bn, imports and exports grew by 2.3% and 1.9% respectively and industrial production grew by 1% in April.

From the UK, data revealed that the deficit of the total trade balance and goods trade balance had marginally narrowed to -£2.57bn and -£8.224bn.

Overnight, data from China continued to disappoint as inflation fell further to -0.6%, producer price inflation fell to -2.9% and industrial production fell to 9.2%. Good news from Japan however, as data revealed that annualised growth in the first quarter increased to 4.1%.

Looking ahead to today, there is very little on the economic calendar to really drive markets. The only notable factor will be the Sentix investor confidence for the euro zone which is expected to improve to -10.

Key Announcements:

9.30am – EUR – Sentix Investor Confidence (Jun): Expected to improve to -10.

13.15pm – CAD – Housing Starts (YoY) (May): Expected to improve to 178.1k.

14.50pm – USD – Feds Bullard Speech.