No surprises from NFP

Markets were expecting the March data to rebound from February and today’s data fit the bill. Nevertheless, it was the only game in town, and traders bought US dollars against the commodity bloc currencies. As of 1350 GMT, EUR, CHF and JPY are unchanged from the New York open.

USDCAD got a double boost: one from the US data and another from the weaker than expected Canadian data. Canada lost 7,200 jobs in March which wasn’t far off of estimates and widely expected. On a positive note, Statistics Canada reported that employment rose by 116,000 or 0.6% in the first quarter of 2019, which for Canada is a stellar result.

Wall Street is trading with small gains thanks to today’s NFP data and the latest news around the China/US trade talks. President Trump sounded optimistic yesterday, but  his tune can change at any time which may explain the tepid rally.

The week ahead may see crushing periods of boredom interrupted by periods of mere tedium, except perhaps in Britain. A slew of UK economic reports, a European Central Bank policy meeting and the release of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes from March 20 suggests Wednesday may be wacky for traders.

On the other hand, it could be a crushing bore. The ECB is unlikely to deliver any game-changing policy insight. They pushed out the date for the next interest increase until the end of 2019, early 2020 and gave details about a new TLTRO last month and they aren’t expected to offer anything new this month. UK data will take a backseat to the dog’s breakfast that is Brexit. British MPs are hoping that the EU will grant an extension to article 50 which if they don’t, means the UK and the EU part company on April 12.