FX Roundup: Dollar heads lower despite positive data

The dollar headed lower on Tuesday, reversing the previous session’s gains while the yen jumped on safe haven demand following turbulence in the equities market.

US job openings rocketed from 5.4m in November to 5.61m in December (consensus: 5.41m), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It followed several months' worth of data that appeared to be pointing to a levelling-off in job openings.

The data was also consistent with the improving trend in the National Federation of Independent Businesses' measure of jobs-hard-to-fill. The so-called 'quit-rate' also hit a new cycle-high of 2.1%, after rising by one tenth of a percentage point.

At 1616 GMT, the dollar fell 0.82% against the yen changing hands at JPY114.90. Meanwhile, the pound was 0.39% higher versus the greenback changing hands at $1.4489, while the euro also rose 1.16% exchanging at $1.1323.

Kit Juckes, head of forex at Societe Generale, said, “The 10-year Treasury/Bund spread is in danger of slipping back below 150bp for the first time since last October, which it was pushed lower by ECB President Mario Draghi's promise of further easing.

"The euro was above 1.13 when that happened and the danger today/this week is that despite the soft German industrial production numbers released overnight (-1.2% m/m, -2.2% y/y), EUR/USD continues to trend higher. Long EUR/GBP may be the best way to trade this for now, with Brexit concerns very much to the fore in the UK."

The dollar continued to rise against a basket of commodity linked currencies. The Aussie dollar was down a modest 0.02% against its US counterpart exchanging at US$0.7086. The greenback also posted upticks of 0.59%, 0.50% and 0.35% against the Colombian peso, Chilean peso and the Brazilian Real, exchanging at COP$3,389.35, CLP$713.29 and BRL3.9039.

However, the New Zealand dollar rose 0.56% changing hands at US$0.6664, while the greenback fell 0.85% against the Canadian dollar exchanging at CAD$1.3809.