Dollar edges lower ahead of payrolls; set for losing week

investing.com:

Investing.com — The U.S. dollar edged lower in early European trade Friday, on course to end a six-week winning streak ahead of the release of the highly-anticipated monthly U.S. jobs report. 

At 03:15 ET (07:15 GMT), the Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, traded 0.1% lower at 103.544, but is down around 0.4% so far this week.

The greenback saw some buying on Thursday after data showed that U.S. personal spending grew much more than expected in July, but the U.S. currency is set to snap a long running positive streak as a batch of weak economic readings fueled bets that the Federal Reserve will keep rates on hold in September.

That said, volumes are limited ahead of the vital August nonfarm payrolls number, as traders look for the latest clues that could inform the path for Federal Reserve policy over the near term.

Analysts expect the U.S. economy created 170,000 jobs last month, down from 187,000 the prior month, while the unemployment rate is expected to stay at 3.5%.

Any signs of strength in the labor market would provide the Federal Reserve with more impetus and headroom to keep raising interest rates.

EUR/USD edged 0.1% higher to 1.0848, with the euro posing small gains after falling 0.7% in the previous session in the wake of data showing that core eurozone inflation fell in August.

Higher-than-expected inflation numbers in the region’s major economies of Germany, France and Spain had raised expectations of a jump in inflation, but this failed to materialize.

There is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the European Central Bank’s next policy meeting, with inflation remaining above target but board member Isabel Schnabel, a noted policy hawk, acknowledging that