Post-NFP Sentiment Pushes EUR/USD To Fresh High Before retreating

Following the US NFP print, EUR/USD pair surged, although the markets were confused by conflicting data. Although the US NFP revealed an increase in jobs, sharp revisions have reduced risk appetite.

On Friday, the EUR/USD pair got some breathing room and surged to a new weekly high close to 1.0980. Investors lost their bullish momentum when they realized the US Nonfarm Payrolls number was more nuanced than they had initially thought, therefore, the pair retreated and eventually stabilized at 1.0934 at the time of writing.

Although US nonfarm payroll growth exceeded forecasts, the prior print was sharply revised downward, bringing it down from an 11-month high. According to the US NFP for February, 275K new jobs were created, far more than the 200K predicted.

The current result surpasses the print from January, which was initially revised to be an 11-month high of 353K, but was later considerably lower to 229K.

The US AHE growth rate in February was less than anticipated, at 0.1% MoM instead of the predicted 0.3% and down from 0.5% in January. The estimated 4.4% was missed by the annualized average hourly earnings, which dropped to 4.3%. Additionally, there was a minor downward correction to the prior period, from 4.5% to 4.4%.

The final European Union’s GDP remained unchanged from the preliminary estimate, with Q4’s QoQ GDP remaining constant at 0.0%. The YoY Producer Price Index (PPI) for Germany unexpectedly gained ground in January, finishing at -4.4% as opposed to the predicted decrease to -6.6% from -5.1% the previous month.