THE dollar opened slightly higher today after the release of disappointing unemployment data in the US on Friday night (AEST).
At 7am (AEST) today, the dollar was trading at $US0.9192/93, up from Friday's close of $US0.9170/73.
Since 5pm on Friday, the local currency traded between $US0.9139 and $US0.9222.
The US non-farm payrolls report showed the US economy shed more jobs than expected in July, heightening fears that the world's largest economy will take years to fully recover from recession.
About 131,000 jobs were lost and the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.5 per cent last month, officials said, as federal and local governments slashed jobs.
Westpac New Zealand senior market strategist Imre Speizer said US payrolls data had weakened the US dollar more than most other currencies.
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"When you have US data releases, if they're moderately positive or negative the Aussie tends to follow that. When you have something extremely positive or negative, which in this case it was, it actually tends to hurt the US dollar more than anything else.
"So against that, you had high risk currencies like the Aussie and the Kiwi actually rising, he said.
"There was possibly some explanation behind that, (in that) you also had US equity markets rebounding later in the session and there's more speculation of some further easing measures from the Fed (US Federal Reserve) when they meet this week."
Mr Speizer expected the dollar to continue to rise for the next couple of days.
"It's showing no signs of turning around just yet. It's been fairly impressively rising at least since the beginning of July.
"We're expecting a turnaround at some point soon but there's no sign just yet that it's going to happen in the next day or so."
He said the market was now waiting for the interest rates decision by the US Federal Reserve due tomorrow night (AEST).
Dollar ends week on a highWeak hiring hobbles economy
