The most important information of the Friday session was undoubtedly the publication of a report from the American job market. After the result of 157 thousand new jobs in the non-agricultural sector (NFP) of July this year, the economists expected the situation to improve in the August report and definitely a better result at the level of 191 thousand. In August, the American economy generated as many as 201,000 new jobs, which was a positive surprise for the markets.
According to the latest report of the American Labor Office, the change in employment in the non-agricultural sector (NFP) in August 2018 amounted to +201k, which is a significantly better result than the monthly result, which was revised negatively to 153k from 157k as well as from already optimistic forecasts at the level of 191k. A positive overtone of this publication was also supported by data on wage growth, which despite forecasts assuming maintaining dynamics at the level of 0.3% m/m and 2.7% y/y, in monthly terms increased by 0.4% and in annual terms by as much as 2 9%. However, it turns out that despite such a significant increase in employment in non-agricultural sectors, the unemployment rate remained at 3.9% in August. The surveyed economists expected its drop to 3.8%.
Let's now take a look at the USD/JPY technical picture at the H4 time frame. As could be expected, as a result of such good data, we observed a strong appreciation of the US dollar. At the USD/JPY pair, the price first moved down slightly, but then jumped higher and eventually made a new high at the level of 111.24. Despite this price action, the market is still moving inside of the horizontal consolidation channel between the levels of 110.68 - 111.24, so no major breakout has occurred yet. Please notice, that the most important technical levels are 110.37 - 111.82.
