US labour market appears to be cooling further – Commerzbank

Yesterday's US labour market figures showed that the labour market is cooling down slowly: job vacancies fell more sharply than expected in July, while layoffs increased more than anticipated, Commerzbank's FX analyst Michael Pfister notes.

Interest rate cuts ahead

"While this fits in with the overall picture of a slowly cooling labour market, it is still a very bad combination. The fact that the figures were for July, is probably why the US dollar did not react too strongly. However, it is likely to have reinforced the belief among all market participants that the Fed will soon start to cut interest rates."

"Yesterday, Fed Governor Christopher Waller also reiterated that he is seeing interest rate cuts in the near future (and several of them). Given his dissenting vote at the end of July, this was not new information, but it underscores once again that upcoming figures will have to be significantly positive to prevent an interest rate cut in just under two weeks."