US dollar flips, risk assets soar as the ISM services report falters

The US dollar has turned around in a big way following the earlier non-farm payrolls data. Cable is now at the highs of 2024, up 87 pips to 1.2764 after falling as low as 1.2612 following the US jobs report.

Other markets are confirming the turn, with US 10-year yields down to 3.96% from a post-NFP high of 4.10%. The S&P 500 is now up 0.6% and gold is up $17 after falling by $20 earlier.

If you’re the Fed seeing the data roll in, the ISM services number should make you feel more confident that economic slowing is coming and all the disinflationary impacts along with it. They’ve signaled that they don’t want the landing to be any harder than it needs to be and that will be a good reason to start taking out ‘insurance’ in March via a rate cut.

Of course, we still have two jobs reports before then and plenty of ground to cover but there’s good reason the market is behaving like it is today.