US NFP Turned Out In Line with Market Expectation

Friday, May 8th, 8:30(EST), US released April's Non-farm Payroll, which was much anticipated by the global market. Data suggests US non-farm payroll in April recorded the sharpest decline since 1939, down by 20.5 million (previous projection had been a 22 million decline). Unemployment rate rose to 14.7%, a record high, although little lower than the expected 16%.

After the data was released, spot gold dipped shortly while the US dollar index spiked.

The positive market reactions such as the rise of USDX, boosted by data better-than-expected, were not surprising, even the sharp decline in the US non-farm payrolls in April was in line with expectation. The number of American jobs has been declining since the pandemic hit US, causing massive close-down of US companies. In the past seven weeks, the number of initial applicants for unemployment assistance in the United States totaled 33.48 million. Taking five weeks as a unit for calculation, this means that the US is seeing the worst unemployment situation in the past fifty years.

But in fact, with the surge in unemployment, the financial market digested this bearish factor before NFP data was released. Therefore, the financial market did not experience major fluctuations when the data turned out in line with, or even better than previous forecasts.

China's situation is completely the opposite to that in US. As the country gradually got rid of the epidemic, China's economy has begun to recover, with many of the key indicators rallying as well. China ‘s Caixin Services PMI for April released on May 7th recorded 44.4, up 1.4 percentage points from March; the April export data released by China ’s General Administration of Customs showed that April s exports increased by 8.2% year-on-year, significantly exceeding the expected 11% decline.

Supported by rallying market confidence and economic data, the RMB exchange rate is currently going up-slope. With the improvement of the epidemic situation, several states in the US are ready to reopen economy and put people back to work. It is expected that dollar's liquidity shortage will eventually ease, and dollar may gradually decline in the future.

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