The US dollar rallied as the improving labor market in the US increased the attractiveness of the greenback, while the equities and the commodities declined.

The report about the employment, released on January 5th, caused the surge of optimism for the US jobs market. Yesterday’s report about the unemployment claims subdued hopes as it was not as good as expected, showing the increase from 391,000 to 409,000, instead of expected 400,000. Still, optimism hasn’t gone away and the experts predict today’s non-farm pay-rolls to show the surge by 159,000.

The rally of the dollar caused the weakness of other assets. Crude oil dropped 2.1 percent to $88.38 per barrel and copper went down 1.8 percent to $4.3295 per pound. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 0.2 percent to 1,273.85.

EUR/USD traded at 1.2999 as of 03:57 GMT today, following the yesterday’s decline from 1.3149 to 1.3002. USD/JPY traded at about 83.33 after yesterday’s advance from 83.24 to 83.32.

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