The greenback traded with a positive tone all week long and Friday’s much smaller than expected contraction in NFP’s which printed at –20K versus forecasts of –75k only served to reinforce the notion that US economy may be simply in a slowdown rather than a full blown recession. As our colleague Kathy Lien noted, “Throughout this past week, there have been a number of upside surprises in the US releases including today’s non-farm payrolls report, first quarter GDP, Chicago PMI, and manufacturing ISM. Although we do not believe that the worst is behind us, this stability does indicate that the pace of the slowdown in the US economy has moderated.”