Biased to a firmer USD tone ahead of next week's ECB meeting – TDS

Commenting on the August US jobs report, "payrolls were +1.37 million in August, close to the +1.35 million consensus," noted TD Securities analysts.

Key quotes

"Private payrolls rose a lesser 1.027 million but the household survey employment measure rose 3.756 million and unemployment fell to 8.4% from 10.2%. The household survey series is much more volatile than the payrolls series and it had been showing more net weakening before this report. Both measures are now down 11.5 million since February."

"We think the payrolls data for August are more indicative of the latest momentum, which looks positive, but not as positive as it was initially when the economy began to "reopen." Meanwhile, even an 8.4% unemployment rate is historically high, and the level is still being held down by lingering misclassification issues as well as a net decline in the participation rate."

"The USD has caught a bid following a big improvement in the unemployment rate. We are biased to a firmer USD tone ahead of next week's ECB meeting where there is more interest than usual given recent concerns over EURUSD's loftiness. We look to 1.1750/60 to be a key threshold to support dips."