The US Dollar held near 100.00 going into the European session, with thin trading expected due to the Good Friday holiday. Markets were cautious ahead of the March US employment report.<\/p>\n
Traders expected Nonfarm Payrolls to rise by 60,000 after a 92,000 fall in February. The Unemployment Rate was forecast to stay at 4.4%.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump referred to the destruction of a bridge in Tehran and warned of further action. Iran\u2019s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said recent US strikes on civilian infrastructure would not change Iran\u2019s stance.<\/p>\n
Trump signed an executive order that could impose tariffs of up to 100% on some imported medicines. The White House said this would apply to patented drugs made in countries without tariff deals with the US, and by firms without most-favoured-nation-pricing agreements.<\/p>\n
RatingDog data showed China\u2019s Services PMI fell to 52.1 in March from 56.7 in February, below the 53.7 forecast. AUD\/USD traded near 0.6910, EUR\/USD near 1.1535 with an 81.0% implied chance of a 25 bps ECB hike on 30 April, GBP\/USD near 1.3230 after a 0.65% drop on Thursday, and USD\/JPY near 159.65 amid intervention warnings.<\/p>\n
Looking back at this time in 2025, we were dealing with a fragile US labor market, with expectations of only a 60,000 job gain after a significant loss. Today, the situation is vastly different, as the most recent March 2026 Nonfarm Payrolls report showed a robust gain of 250,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate down to 3.8%. This suggests the Federal Reserve has more room to maintain its restrictive policy, so we should consider strategies that benefit from continued US dollar strength.<\/p>\n
Geopolitical risks have shifted from the direct military confrontations we saw in Iran during 2025. Current tensions are now centered more on economic competition and cyber threats, which introduces a different kind of market volatility. This environment makes broad market index options, like those on the VIX, useful for hedging against sudden, unpredictable spikes in fear.<\/p>\n
Last year, a slowdown in China’s service sector to a PMI of 52.1 raised concerns about global growth and weighed on commodity currencies. In contrast, the official data released this week for March 2026 showed a surprisingly strong rebound in China\u2019s Services PMI to 54.5, beating all expectations. This renewed optimism suggests that long positions in the Australian dollar, perhaps through AUD\/USD call options, could be profitable.<\/p>\n
We see a significant divergence in central bank policy compared to 2025, when the European Central Bank was poised for a rate hike. Recent Eurozone inflation data for March 2026 came in below target at 1.8%, leading markets to price out any near-term ECB rate increases. Meanwhile, threats of intervention from Japanese authorities have subsided as the yen has stabilized, making the environment for trading USD\/JPY less volatile.<\/p>\n
The outlook for the Australian dollar is now more complex than it was in 2025 when it was driven purely by Reserve Bank of Australia rate hike expectations. While the strong Chinese data is a major tailwind, the RBA’s own recent statements have struck a more cautious tone, citing persistent domestic inflation. This conflicting information could lead to significant price swings, making straddle or strangle options a prudent way to trade potential breakouts in AUD pairs.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US Dollar steadied near 100 amid holiday-thin trade; jobs data, Iran tensions, tariffs shaped FX moves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}