BREAKING: USD surges on hawkish NFP data

NFP report for January was a key macro report of the day and was released at 1:30 pm GMT. Report was expected another month of robust jobs growth as well as a downtick in monthly wage growth, compared to December. However, actual report turned out to be a massive hawkish surprise!

Jobs growth came in almost twice as high as the market was expecting, while wage growth accelerating significantly. Unemployment rate stayed unchanged at 3.7%, in spite of an expected uptick to 3.8%. Summing up, there is nothing in the report that could justify quick rate cuts from Federal Reserve!

Market reaction to the release was hawkish as well - USD surged, while Wall Street indices and GOLD slumped.

US, NFP report for January

• Non-farm payrolls: 353k vs 180k expected (216k previously)
• Two-month revision: 126k
• Private payrolls: 317k vs 150k expected (164k previously)
• Unemployment rate: 3.7% vs 3.8% expected (3.7% previously)
• Wage growth (monthly): 0.6% MoM vs 0.3% MoM expected (0.4% MoM previously)
• Wage growth (annual): 4.5% YoY vs 4.1% YoY expected (4.1% YoY previously)

Source: xStation5