There's a lot going on this morning in the forex. For starters, the non-farm payrolls number for June showed that the U.S. economy continued to lose jobs. The U.S. economy lost 62,000 jobs in June; also, April and May payrolls were revised lower.

(Non farm payrolls, normally announced on Fridays, were released one day early due to the U.S. holiday tomorrow.)

On balance, June's non-farm payrolls number was terrible. But the U.S. dollar is up across the board this morning thanks to the European Central Bank (ECB).

I thought that Jean Claude Trichet, head of the ECB, would back off of his hawkish rhetoric. I outlined as much in a post yesterday, which you can scroll down to read or click here.

The ECB hiked rates this morning, as expected, to 4.25%. But Trichet eased his hawkish tone during the press conference. Specifically, the ECB omitted two phrases that it normally uses to communicate its intentions:

"heightended alertness" and "strong vigilance"

Trichet was asked by a reporter why he left out these two phrases. Trichet's response essentially confirmed that the ECB was on hold. That's when the EUR/USD started selling off in a big way. Below is a 1 minute chart of the EUR/USD, showing the start of the press conference and the following sell-off.

EUR/USD 1 Minute Chart Following ECB Press Conference

I made the comment yesterday that the ECB meeting is actionable because of the press conference. You can see what I meant in the chart above. The EUR/USD dropped by 150 pips over the course of 30 minutes. That's a big move in a short space of time. It's a continuous move, too. It's not like a 150 pips were covered in the space of 1 minute. There was plenty of time to get into a trade following Trichet's comments.

Hopefully you were following along and caught some of the move. If not, hopefully you'll be following along and watching the next ECB press conference. I know it's early for some of our U.S. clients and late for some of our clients in Asia, but it's worth it because of the easy trades that generally accompany ECB meetings.

I'll be away on holiday tomorrow and won't be posting to the blog. We'll pick-up next week on the implications of today's reversal in the euro and U.S. dollar. In the meantime, look for some follow-through of today's move overnight and expect trading to quiet down as Europe closes due to the holiday in the U.S.