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By Bloomberg

The dollar was little changed Wednesday after four days of gain as investors awaited U.S. jobs data that may help them assess how soon the Federal Reserve will start raising interest rates.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index kept up momentum that saw it complete a third-straight quarterly gain on Tuesday. It’s up about 20 percent since the end of June as more than two dozen central banks, including those in Australia, Canada and Europe, eased monetary policy while the Fed signaled it may lift borrowing costs in 2015.

“With the overwhelming number of global central banks being engaged in monetary easing operations while the Fed is contemplating a cautious lift-off, we believe that the stage is set for ongoing cyclical dollar strength,” said Thomas Kressin, head of European foreign-exchange at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Munich. “U.S. data prints will remain an important driver of the dollar.”

Companies added 225,000 jobs in March, after a 212,000 increase the month before, according to the median prediction of economists in a Bloomberg survey before Roseland, New Jersey- based ADP Research Institute releases its report on Wednesday. That will be followed in two days’ time by data from the Labor Department, which are projected to show the world’s largest economy added 245,000 jobs last month.

Bloomberg’s dollar index, which tracks the U.S. currency against 10 of its peers, was little changed at 1,200.85 as of 7:28 a.m. New York time after rising 0.3 percent earlier. The greenback weakened 0.2 percent to $1.0756 per euro after reaching $1.0458 on March 16, the strongest level since January 2003. It was little changed at 120.08 yen.

Dollar Vulnerable

The dollar advanced 6.6 percent against a basket of 10 developed-nation currencies this year, making it the best performer after the Swiss franc, which added 9.7 percent, Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes show. The yen rose 6.3 percent, while the euro dropped 6.5 percent.

The greenback is vulnerable because the market’s still positioned for further gains, and a weak payrolls report on Friday would confirm investor concern that a slowdown in the first quarter wasn’t an aberration, according to Steven Englander, global head of Group-of-10 currency strategy at Citigroup Inc. in New York.

The world’s biggest currency trader forecasts a gain of 220,000 and said an outcome below that level may lead to a dollar selloff.

Australia’s dollar rose against its New Zealand counterpart for the first time in five days, gaining 0.5 percent to NZ$1.0235.

The kiwi has climbed so much on New Zealand’s reluctance to join the global wave of monetary easing that the central bank is trying to weaken the currency by selling it, according to ABN Amro Bank NV and Morgan Stanley.