Forex focus: keep on your toes in topsy-turvy times World First's Jeremy Cook also finds reasons to be cheerful. In a world that is still very uncertain, the US jobs market is bringing an element of foundation to the US economy. We expect to see better US data promote dollar strength and vice versa. It does suggest, and lead us towards, market pricing that will likely see a breakdown of the risk-on/risk-off market behaviour that has been so prevalent in the past two to three years and lead to an increased reliance on the individual performance of each respective economy. That is likely to increase volatility and the unpredictability of currency markets. Given the struggle to find growth and stability, any green shoots are welcome, but it's not looking that positive in the UK. "Global equity markets have greeted the New Year with the sound of champagne corks," notes David Kerns of Moneycorp, "By contrast sterling's January began to the sound of alarm bells. With British public sector debt still rising, and the risk of a credit rating downgrade refusing to go away, the pound's prospects for the next few months look less than rosy. Although there's still fears of a triple-dip recession in Britain, Josh Ferry Woodard of TorFX believes "it is possible that sterling could slipstream past the single currency soon, as overshooting inflation deters the Bank of England from further quantitative easing." Stephen Hughes of currencies.co.uk also has a bleak view of the euro. "2013 won't be a good year for the eurozone and it remains to be seen if it will emerge in 2014 with all its member states still intact," he says. Greece begins 2013 in a precarious situation. To maintain its euro membership in 2013 it had to agree to another round of confidence-sapping austerity measures. With the Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Monti, now gone there's a good chance that it could be in the forefront of a new eurozone crisis too. It's not much better for France. They are expected to show only 0.1pc economic growth in 2012 and none at all in 2013. Both Germany and Italy face elections this year and the huge debt problems in the eurozone still have to be faced. "Neither of these factors will lend great support to the euro over the coming year," says Charles Purdy of Smart Currency Exchange. However, there is the European Central Bank to fall back on. So over the first part of this year any movement in the euro is unlikely to find long-term support given these conflicting factors. As for the US we are going to have a very turbulent couple of months as the Republicans and Democrats take it to the wire with regard to increasing the debt ceiling and reducing government expenditure. Strangely the more disruptive this become the stronger the US dollar will become as risk aversion comes to the fore. All in all, it looks like exchange rates are going to be bouncing around this year. Which means that anyone looking to move significant amounts into another currency needs to be on their toes - and on their broker's case - to grab the best rates.