U.S. Dollar Moves To The Upside After Seeing Early Weakness

(RTTNews) - After seeing some weakness in morning trading, the value of U.S. dollar has shown a notable turnaround over the course of trading on Friday.

The U.S. dollar index is climbing 0.64 points or 0.6 percent to 104.26 after slipping 0.3 percent to a low of 103.27.

The buck is trading at 146.17 yen versus the 145.54 yen it fetched at the close of New York trading on Thursday. Against the euro, the dollar is valued at $1.0777 compared to yesterday's $1.0843.

The early weakness in the dollar came after the Labor Department released a report showing modestly stronger than expected job growth in the month of August but also an unexpected increase in the unemployment rate.

The Labor Department said employment climbed by 187,000 jobs in August compared to economist estimates for the addition of 170,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, the report said the unemployment rate climbed to 3.8 percent in August from 3.5 percent in July. Economists had expected the unemployment rate to remain unchanged.

With the unexpected increase, the unemployment rate reached its highest level since hitting a matching rate in March 2022.

The advance by the unemployment rate came as the size of the labor force surged by 736,000 persons, while the household survey measure of employment rose by 222,000 persons.

However, the dollar moved to the upside after the Institute for Supply Management released a separate report showing a slowdown in the pace of contraction in U.S. manufacturing activity.

The ISM said its manufacturing PMI rose to 47.6 in August from 46.4 in July, although a reading below 50 still indicates a contraction. Economists had expected the index to inch up to 47.0.