USD stronger as pound weakens

The US dollar strengthened Wednesday on data which showed that jobs creation was up in the US in November, that worker productivity advanced in the third quarter, and that factory orders were up in October, making it less likely that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week.

Factory orders were up by 0.5 percent in October, while there were 189,000 new jobs created in November and third-quarter productivity was up at an annual rate of 6.3 percent.

In morning trade it took $1.4662 to buy a euro, while by early afternoon the dollar had dropped back a bit to $1.4669 to the euro but remained better than the $1.4758 to the euro where the greenback traded on Tuesday.

At the same time, it took ¥110.8300 to buy a dollar.

Meanwhile, sterling dropped to lowest level in over four years versus the euro and to a six-week low against the greenback after the UK service sector expanded less in November than it has done in four years, while the average price of a home in the UK dropped by 1.1 percent last month.

In early afternoon trade in New York it took 72.38p to buy a euro, with predictions that it could drop as low as 72.55p to the euro by the end of the year, while dollar traded at $2.0267 to the pound.

The yen and the Swiss franc were both also weaker after investors regained some appetite for risk.

Besides declines in relation to the US dollar, the yen was trading at ¥162.5765 to the euro and at ¥224.6246 to the pound, while the Swiss franc traded at SFr1.1252 to the dollar, at SFr1.6506 to the euro and at SFr2.2805 to the pound.

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