Good afternoon traders.

 Another very busy and filled with activity week went by with a couple of central bank catalysts and the highly anticipated U.S. NFP release. During Monday the US ISM Manufacturing PMI figures for June came in lower than anticipated by market analysts. Market worries of the US economy entering a recession in the near future were highlighted by the lower-than-expected figures. On Tuesday

during the Asia session RBA announced their official Cash Rate which took the market by surprise. Australian central bank officials left the rate unchanged at 4.10% however the bank noted that inflation remains high and that some further tightening may be required in the future. Early Wednesday we had the release of China’s Caixin Services PMI figure for June, which came in lower than expected. We also had some interesting developments in the oil markets after participants in the OPEC meetings stated that they would not be announcing any extra voluntary cuts on the oil production. Later in the day the FOMC June meeting minutes were released indicating that the Fed is concerned that current measures may have not been sufficient and potentially hinting that the bank may have to continue its aggressive rate hiking policy to reach the bank’s 2% inflation target. On Thursday upbeat US data boosted the dollar against commodity currencies however weakened it versus Euro, GBP and Yen. ADP report showed an increase in payrolls of 497K while the ISM Services PMI rose from 50.3 to 53.9 in June, and the Employment Index improved to 54.4. The much-anticipated NFP readings were released today which came below the market expectation of 225K at 209K bringing the USD under renewed selling pressure. Along NFP, the Unemployment Rate edged lower to 3.6% from 3.7% as expected and the annual wage inflation, as measured by the Average Hourly Earnings, stood unchanged at 4.4%.

Have a lovely weekend and a nice week ahead.