In a somewhat turbulent foreign exchange market, already focused on official US employment figures to be released on Friday, the euro remained stable against the dollar on Tuesday.

The pound strengthened against the euro and the dollar ahead of the Bank of England (BoE) monetary meeting on Thursday. Around 7:00 p.m., the euro was down slightly by 0.05% at 1.1864 dollars for one euro. The pound rose against the dollar (+0.24% to 1.3916 dollars for one pound) as well as against the European currency (+0.29% to 85.25 pence for one euro). He believes the market is likely to remain calm until the release of the US jobs report on Friday, "unless a sharp rise in the number of Covid-19 cases benefits the dollar."

For traders, US jobs matter because good data could give the US central bank (Fed) leeway to tighten monetary policy. Across the Atlantic, "the recent performance of the British pound reflects the hope that the Covid-19 pandemic could be + mostly behind us in September-October +", comments Lee Hardman, analyst at MUFG, alluding to the optimistic diagnosis of the epidemiologist Neil Ferguson.