It was an uninspiring final day of the Asian trade week as traders sat on the sidelines ahead of US employment data due out later in the day.  The non-farm payroll and unemployment data will be a strong indication of the strength of the current recovery in the US. The forecasts show a loss of 173K jobs for last month and an overall unemployment number of 9.9%, up from last month's 9.8%. As could be expected, if the data disappoints the dollar should be the benefactor, and on the other hand, if the data is in line or better, the dollar should be dumped like yesterday's newspaper.

With many traders sitting today out, the ranges were small, even by Asia standards. EUR/USD stayed in a less than 25 pip range near 1.4870. USD/JPY traded between 90.86 and 90.56. The AUD/USD was lackluster as well despite the RBA monetary policy statement that said rates would likely increase gradually after the central bank hiked forecasts for 2010 GDP. It still seems like a coin toss if the RBA will raise rates one final time for 2009 in December. Although the AUD/USD made solid gains to highs just shy of 0.9140, the move was only worth 50 pips in total.   The pound also was bid in Asia today, gaining almost 60 pips from 1.6560 to 1.6620 despite data that showed a slump in GDP data for the past three months.

This weekend also brings a G-20 Meeting in Scotland where the attendees face the daunting task of trying to pull their economies out of the weakening grasp of the global financial crisis. With too many competing views, expect much of the focus of the meeting to be on crisis exit strategies as opposed to foreign exchange. Have a good weekend.