The US dollar was nearly flat against the euro on Friday despite stronger-than-expected US monthly jobs data, as markets continued to digest Thursday's unexpectedly small stimulus from the European Central Bank. US nonfarm payrolls increased 211,000 last month, the Labour Department said on Friday. September and October data was revised to show 35,000 more new jobs than first reported.
While analysts said the data was strong enough to confirm that the Federal Reserve would hike US interest rates this month for the first time in nearly a decade, they also said it failed to fuel a dollar rally against the euro given the ECB's decision. "There was so much pain in the market yesterday that the willingness to act has been relatively subdued," said Sebastien Galy, currency strategist at Deutsche Bank in New York, on the dollar's minor gains against the euro.
The dollar gained against the yen and Swiss franc, however, which helped boost the US dollar index. The dollar was last up 0.29 percent at 122.960 yen, and was last up 0.41 percent against the Swiss franc at 0.99700 franc. The euro was last down just 0.1 percent against the dollar at $1.09290. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was last up 0.47 percent at 98.077.

Copyright Reuters, 2015

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