NY Open: Greenback grinding out gains

The US dollar is pushing higher in New York trading. The moves are marginal, but the direction is uniform. Friday’s blowout nonfarm payrolls release may be contributing to greenback demand as it shows US economic performance continuing to outpace the country's G10 peers. Also, the latest news from the Eurozone and the UK haven’t provided any impetus to buy those currencies.

GBPUSD traded with a negative bias in a tight range. UK officials met with Eurozone Secretary General Martin Selmayr, who tweeted afterwards: “The meeting confirmed that the EU did well to start its no deal preparations in December 2017.”

Support in the 1.3040 area held and prices recovered to 1.3075 by 14:00 GMT.

USDJPY added to European gains, punching through resistance at 110.00 to test 110.15 aided by a small rise in US Treasury yields. The general US dollar demand is undermining EURUSD. US dollar selling pressures may abate slightly because of soft Factory orders data (-0.6% versus a forecasted 0.2%)

USDCAD traded steadily higher throughout the morning coinciding with a plunge 3.6% in oil prices in the same period. WTI dropped from an opening level of $55.36/barrel to $53.36/b as of 14:00 GMT which has entirely erased the Friday/Monday rally. 

Wall Street traders may be suffering lingering effects from Sunday’s snoozer of a Super Bowl game. The major indices opened flat which is where the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 sat as of 14:00 GMT. The Nasdaq manages to squeeze out a 0.50%. Alphabet (GOOGL: Nasdaq) reports after the close.

US markets may be a tad reluctant to get too involved due to a lack of top-tier economic reports President Trump’s State of the Union address on Wednesday.