Markets set aside last night’s entertaining vice presidential debate and focused in on a worse than expected Labor Department report this morning.  According to the September Non-farm payrolls release, payrolls declined by a disappointing 159,000 for the month.  Notable declines were seen in manufacturing and building with an exceptional gain in government payrolls of 9,000.  As a result, the dismal figure has experts, economists and traders a like calling for the worst recessionary environment since the early 80’s, helping to further crimp liquidity in the markets.  The sentiment has boosted the dollar once again but momentum may stall as traders take profits on a windfall of bearishness as we head into the weekend.

Taking a technical look, the GBPUSD is currently testing formidable support just below the 1.7800 handle.  With the previous declining channel resistance broken on the upside, the intraday high of 1.7757 remains a key barrier.  Further upside potential remains with bullish targets set above at 1.7850 in the near term.

Tags: US Non-Farm Payrolls

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 10:49 am and is filed under Currency Trading, Economic Indicators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.