Dollar, shares shaky ahead of U.S. jobs data

By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar was under pressure on Friday and shares were on track for a third straight week of losses as markets suffered an uneasy run-up to U.S. jobs data later in the session.

The dollar hovered near a 3-1/2 month low against a basket of currencies and stabilised against the yen at 96.85 yen after its biggest fall against the Japanese currency in three years on Thursday.

European shares opened little changed as they failed to see any rebound from sharp falls in the previous session which had pushed them to 6-week lows. Japanese equities had plunged to two-month lows in Asian trading.

That reflected tension ahead of U.S. non-farm payrolls figures which are seen as key to the Federal Reserve's stimulus programme after talk this week has intensified about it being scaled back in the coming months.

"Over the very short run there might be some relief (from payrolls) but the general theme is that ... we seem to be losing our mantra that central banks will help us all the way," said Gerhard Schwarz, head of equity strategy at Baader Bank.

"We are heading for increased volatility and some kind of topping out process over the next couple of weeks, but at some point probably there will a 10 percent correction coming into the equity market, and possibly deeper into the third quarter."

In the debt market, safe-haven German Bunds edged higher but trade was expected to be choppy going into the U.S. data. Economists polled by Reuters expected to see a 170,000 increase in non-farm payrolls this month.

(Additional reporting by Toni Vorobyova; Editing by John Stonestreet)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-shares-steady-wall-street-gain-jobs-eyed-002424510.html

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