Dollar Climbs as Job Gains Bolster Case for Fed Rate Increase

The dollar rose, touching its strongest in a week against the euro, after a report on U.S. job growth for July backed the case for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.

The greenback climbed versus major currencies as the Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls climbed 255,000 in July, compared with the 180,000 median forecast in a Bloomberg survey.

Evidence of strength in the world’s biggest economy may help the dollar rebound from a slump of about 4 percent this year by reviving expectations that U.S. monetary policy will further diverge from that of the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank, which are adding stimulus to spur growth.

“We’ve been long-term bullish on the dollar and we continue to be,” said Kathy Jones, New York-based chief fixed-income strategist at Charles Schwab & Co. “This number should push us more towards a rate hike and more divergence.”

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the currency against 10 major peers, rose 0.3 percent as of 8:41 a.m. in New York. The greenback gained 0.4 percent to $1.1089 per euro, and 0.3 percent to 101.56 yen.

The Fed kept rates unchanged at its meeting last week, while saying “near-term risks to the economic outlook have diminished.” Officials also underscored a plan to stick to a gradual pace of policy tightening.

The payrolls data may allay concern fueled by a much weaker-than-projected report on second-quarter economic growth last week.

The market-implied probability of a rate increase this year rose to 45 percent, from about 36 percent in the minutes before the release of the labor figures, futures data show.