Better than expected Australian Retail Sales lifted Aussie dollar on Friday. Retail sales rose by 0.3% in June, beating forecast at 0.2% but remain in descending mode in past three months, after peaking at 1% in April.

Australian dollar was additionally boosted by RBA’s Monetary policy statement, released today. Report shows that the central bank is more confident about economic growth and expects it to accelerate in the next two years, however, expectations for the labor sector, where RBA sees little improvement, suggest that interest rates may stay on hold for some time.

With light calendar in Europe on Friday, focus turns towards key release, US jobs report for July.
According to the forecasts, US employers are expected to keep strong pace of hiring in July, with wages also expected to rise.

Positive release today will be positive signal and would pave way for the Fed to announce widely expected plans for gradual monetary policy tightening on start of reducing its massive $4.5 trillion portfolio in Fed’s big policy meeting in September.

Forecasts show that US non-farm payrolls increased by 181K, following surge to 222K in June, which is seen as solid figure.

Also, average hourly earnings are forecasted to rise by 0.3% in July after being up by 0.2% in June.

US unemployment is expected to drop to 4.3% in July from 4.4% previous month.

Jobs report from Canada is also on schedule today. Report is going to be released at the same time with US jobs report at 12:30 GMT with expectations for 10K new jobs created in July, which is well below previous two month’s results at 54.5K and 45.0K.

Unemployment rate in Canada is expected to stay unchanged in July at 6.5%.