Dollar Gains Slightly as Unemployment Rises

Risk appetite suffered a significant impact towards the end of this week’s session after both U.S. and Canada published grim employment figures, forcing investors to take more cautions positions and bet once again in the relative safety provided by dollar-priced assets.

The U.S. dollar gained versus several currencies towards the end of this week session, and specially versus its Canadian counterpart as employment figures were published in both North American countries, indicating a surprising aggravation in unemployment in both U.S. and Canada, fact which raised risk aversion among North American traders, and to a lesser extent globally. Even if higher unemployment shift risk appetite levels among traders, the U.S. dollar is ending this week once again negatively versus the euro, after the European Central Bank affirmed yesterday that measures to stimulate the economy will be gradually phased out, creating speculations that the Eurozone economic health is considerably better than the North America’s current situation.

Unemployment is raising worldwide, and its almost a sure shot to expect negative reports regarding job figures every time data is published, according to some analysts. Even if these North America reports brought investors to safety, it was not enough to erase dollar losses this week, as investors still prefer to maintain their bets in higher-yielding markets.

USD/CAD traded at 1.0678 as of 14:55 GMT from a previous rate of 1.0626 in the intraday comparison