On Monday, the market major is vigorous. The current quote is 1.0680.
Over the first week of the year, the pair lived through both abrupt growth of the USD and a similarly fast recovery of the EUR. The thin holiday market with low liquidity levels only facilitated large amplitude of fluctuations.
Investors got focused on the minutes of the US Fed's meeting. In the document, the regulator asked investors and economists to abstain from preliminary optimism and hasty decisions based on just one moderate increase in the interest rate. The USD got stronger but not for long.
The US have already presented the employment market statistics for December. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%, though it had been expected to remain at 3.7%. The NFP grew by 223 thousand against 200 thousand expected. This is good news demonstrating the sustainability of the labour market. At the same time, average hourly wage grew by just 0.3% upon growing by 0.6% previously. This is neutral news because companies just comply with the interests of their employees.
Bad news came out of the blue. The US ISM demonstrated a decline in services to 49.5 points against 55 points expected. A slow-down in the economic activity in the midst of the consumption season is indeed bad, and the USD reacted at once.
All in all, a direct indication on a slow-down of the country's economy was serious bad news for the USD.