Dollar falls as US fails to create new jobs

[UpInArms]

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1078381570503

The dollar tumbled on Friday as new data revealed that the US economy failed to create any new private sector jobs last month.

Against the background of a presidential campaign increasingly marked by protectionist rhetoric, total employment rose by just 21,000 in February, well below forecasts of around 150,000.

Even this modest job creation was entirely accounted for by a 21,000 increase in the government payroll. The figures raise questions about the sustainability of the US recovery and will alarm President George W. Bush.

The sluggish labour market has become a focus for Senator John Kerry, his Democrat challenger in November, who seized on the figures as evidence that Mr Bush's policies were failing.

...more...

[MikeG]

1. Time to pull Osama out of the spider hole.

[zbird]

2. Wow, that's incredible.

Only 21,000 new jobs on the first release of information? Haven't all the initial numbers reported for the past few months been corrected DOWNWARD after a few weeks? So it is possible that there was actually a net LOSS of jobs in February?

Must be that "jobloss" recovery.

[fearnobush]

5. Correct,

January's numbers were posted at 112,000 new jobs, today that number suddenly became 97,000. And to top it all off an ugly 588,000 people took themselves out of the hunt for work last month alone!!! These figures are NEVER added in to the unemployement figures. If they were, our actual unemployement rate would be around 12%.

[West Coast Democrat]

3. I just noticed by 401k bond fund shot up to a 6 year high today

It didn't even make it this high when the market tanked back in 2001/2002. Something is going on.

[fearnobush]

6. It's called greed.

When little or no jobs are reported, the markets respond happily. They like the Feds rate at 1% and do not want to see it climb. If it were not for the Martha stock sell off, the DJIA would have topped a 100 pts today.....the rich are indeed getting richer, but the jobless, well you know what I mean.

[Chicago Democrat]

4. How far will the dollar fall??

ok one day 1.21 to 1.24 for a euro!

How far can it go?

1.3 for sure
1.4 when
1.5 whoknows?

[freeforall]

7. It's also important to know

what kind of jobs these "new" ones are. I'd bet they're retail or low-paying service industry.

With all the outsourcing, how can the government think to create new jobs? What sector would they likely be in?

It also makes me laugh when * says that people need to be retrained. Retrained for what?

The problem with the jobs and economy, unfortunately, will plague Kerry as well, because this has to do with the larger picture of globalization. Unless Kerry and the Dem government create some stiff rules for the corporations, I think the problem will get worse, no matter who is in office.

[54anickel]

8. They were all gov't jobs - no private sector at all - from the article

Even this modest job creation was entirely accounted for by a 21,000 increase in the government payroll.

[ramapo]

9. Dubya must be seething

He hates the growing government.

[schultzee]

10. Poor GW. May he continue to fail and fail and fail

[Sinistrous]

11. One day does not a trend make...

According to http://www.x-rates.com/ , the data for the last 120 days shows that, between September 10, 2003 and Jan 9, 2004, the dollar fell from .8956 euro to .7780 euro. From early January, 2004 until mid-February, the dollar varied between .78 and .80 euro. Since mid-February the dollar climbed back to .825. The latest close was .806. (All dates and values are approximate -- obtained off a graph.)

Hard to tell if this latest drop is the start of a new trend, or just another oscillation within a range of values.

[54anickel]

13. If you take a step back to look at 1 year and 3 year graphs, plus

listening to the constant rhetoric of Greenspin and Snow of how good a devalued dollar is, it's pretty easy to speculate it will still be on it's way down. Add to that the fact that the BoJ just approved another 40 trillion yen for intervention.

One other little tidbit is that the NYBOT Dollar index is outdated and heavily weighted toward the Euro. The Fed looks to a revised trade-weighted index which shows the dollar barely making a dent.


1 year graph

?s=NYBOT_DXY0&t=l&w=15&a=50&v=d12



10/01 to date graph

?s=NYBOT_DXY0&t=l&w=15&a=50&v=dmax


Link to revised index info
http://www.frbatlanta.org/econ_rd/dol_index/di_index.cfm

[dbt]

12. KICK!

Because that damn Liberal Media somehow failed to tell me about this yesterday.

:argh:
dbt