The US dollar touched its best level in eight days against the euro on Tuesday following a report that revealed the highest job openings in record in the United States. An index that tracks the strength of the greenback against other major currencies also rose today to reach its strongest level in two weeks.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said in a report that was released this afternoon that the number of job openings increased 461,000 to 6.163 million in June, which beat analyst estimates of an increase to 5.775 million. Most of the gain was in the private sector, which had 417,000 new job openings in June. Professional and business services had 179,000 more available positions, while health care and social assistance came in second with 125,000 job openings.
The data lifted the US dollar even though job openings reports are not among main market movers, as the job openings gauge reached the strongest reading since the Labor Department began gathering data in December 2000. The gauge is one of the economic indicators that policymakers in the Federal Reserve use when deciding monetary policy.
Meanwhile, the hiring rate remained little changed at 3.7% in June, according to the report, with all industries but one maintaining the same level of hires. However, the number of hires decreased 29,000 for educational services. The separations rate also remained little changed in June at 3.6% despite a drop of 19,000 in state and local government.
Over the 12-month period leading to June, hires totaled 63.4 million while separations totaled 61.1 million, which resulted in a 2.3 million employment gain.
EUR/USD traded at 1.1741 as of 15:45 GMT on Tuesday from 1.1735 at 18:25 GMT, the pairâs lowest level since July 31. EUR/USD began trading today at 1.1798.
The Dollar Index, which measures the performance of the US currency against a basket of major peers, rose to 93.75 as of 15:37 GMT today, the highest level since July 27, from 93.43 yesterday.
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