Downside risks remain material for the US Dollar – ING

The US Dollar (USD) has had a bad week even though rates did not move too aggressively against it. Economists at ING analyze Greenback’s outlook ahead of the US Nonfarm Payrolls report.

Many surveys point to a softer NFP read than the consensus of 200K

We have US payrolls on the calendar today. Consensus is centred at 200K, in line with our economists’ call. However, this number does not really reflect the evidence from other surveys – which point to something closer to 100K – but one that embeds the tendency of jobs data to surprise on the upside and diverge from other indicators. In other words, there are no compelling reasons to exclude that we’ll finally see a softer print, but the recent strength in the NFP reports warrants a good deal of caution.

NFP will determine the direction of FX markets today. Following Powell’s testimony, we suspect markets will not be too reluctant to price in more cuts. After all, the Fed funds futures curve has not much changed since the end of last week. Downside risks remain material for the Dollar today.