Is NFP strong enough to provide direction for pairs?

As the trading day progressed today, we could witness largely indecision in the markets with regards to the USD and the general sentiment towards the health of the global economy on Monday.

Throughout the day, limited movements were experienced in most of the pairs, as it became more and more evident that the market was waiting to see where the US economy will be headed. Although the US government shutdown has since been ended, it is estimated that as much as hundreds of millions of dollars a day was lost with each day the government was shutdown.

This has put traders on the defensive in buying into the USD as the market may see this as a factor that could delay the tapering by the Federal Reserve(US Central Bank) of its monthly QE activities to the tune of 85 billion USD until it can see better data coming out in support of the economic recovery it is pushing so hard for. The market was expecting an October tapering, or perhaps even November, but the government shutdown has since changed the views of many, who think that it has hurt the economy and hence delayed the recovery.

With the exception of the USDJPY & GBPUSD, most of the major pairs showed little directional bias, although the EURUSD & USDCHF did provide some movement but still ended up largely unchanged.

The directional movement of the USDJPY was largely due to JPY weakness as it showed a worse than expected "Trade Balance" number and from statements made by the BOJ governor Kuroda who reiterated that the bank would stick to its stimulus program. (Source : http://www.investing.com/news/forex-news/dollar-moves-higher-vs.-yen,-u.s.-data-in-focus-254091). Even then, the price action shows signs of a shallow movement indicating caution by traders.

This would support my view that the NFP reading coming out from the US which was delayed due to the shutdown of government services, and originally scheduled to come out October 4th, and has now been rescheduled again to 22 October, is in the focus. Depending on how much it will deviate from the forecast, this could be the catalyst that could tip the currencies in either direction and provide some volatility in the markets. Coupled with some data coming out from China in the morning, I am certain Tuesday will be a much more eventful trading day and I will be ready to take advantage of the movements!