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USD/CHF trades calmly near 0.7960 in countdown to US NFP

  • USD/CHF flattens around 0.7960 ahead of the combined US NFP report for October and November.
  • The US NFP is expected to come in at 40K in November, lower than 119K in September.
  • Swiss government sees inflation averaging at 0.2% this year and in 2026.

The USD/CHF pair trades stably around 0.7960 during the early European trading session on Tuesday. The Swiss Franc pair remains calm as investors await the United States (US) Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) report for October and November, which will be published at 13:30 GMT.

Ahead of the US employment data, the US Dollar Index (DXY), which tracks the Greenback’s value against six major currencies, remains on the defensive near the eight-week low around 98.15.

The US NFP report is expected to show that the economy added 40K fresh workers, significantly lower than 119K in September. The Unemployment Rate is projected to come in steady at 4.4%. The impact of the US employment data will be significant on the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) monetary policy outlook as comments from officials in past few months have shown that they are more concerned about the labor market health than inflation remaining above the 2% target.

On Friday, San Francisco Fed Bank President Mary Daly said in a LinkedIn post that she favored interest rate cuts in the policy meeting on Wednesday as “inflation is too high and the job market is getting softer, adding that “we [Fed] cannot let the labor market falter", Reuters reported.

In Tuesday’s session, other notable highlights in the US economy are Retail Sales data for October, and the flash S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data for December.

Meanwhile, the Swiss Franc (CHF) trades subduedly as latest projections from Switzerland government have shown that the inflation is projected to average at 0.2% in 2025 and 2026, capping the hopes of policy normalization by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in the near term. The administration sees inflation rising at a faster pace of 0.5% in 2027. On the economic front, the government expects the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth to slowdown to 1.1% in 2026 after expanding 1.4% in 2025.

(This story was corrected on December 16 at 08:50 GMT to say that the GDP is expected to slowdown to 1.1% in 2026 after expanding 1.4% in 2025, not before.)

Author

Sagar Dua

Sagar Dua

FXStreet

Sagar Dua is associated with the financial markets from his college days. Along with pursuing post-graduation in Commerce in 2014, he started his markets training with chart analysis.

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