Australian Dollar News
The Australian Dollar continued to hold steady over the weekend after it finally broke and closed above the all important 0.91 level against the USD last week, which had previously held it in check since early December 2013.
This appeared to be inspired by Governor Stevens late last week when he talked about the Australian economy, and interest rates, allowing confidence to return to the Aussie, one of the most beaten down currencies of 2013. It closed out the week at an impressive 0.9245, after hitting an intraday high of 0.92941, which considering only two short months ago it had touched an intraday low of 0.8650, with a further level of 0.8000 being called for by Christine Lagarde et al, head of the International Monetary Fund.
Governor Stevens is back on deck again early Tuesday afternoon with an RBA rate decision that most analysts believe will be kept on hold at 2.50%, but as is the case with these Central Bank chiefs, it’s not necessarily what they do but what they say that really counts, and with an Australian Dollar that seems to want to rally on any news, bad or good, it will be one of the more closely listened to, and watched, rate decisions in a while.
The Pound has definitely had a good run of late, since March of last year it has gone up nearly 50-60%, and after consolidating its run over a 2-3 month period, is starting to show some signs of tipping over, especially against the AUD and the USD. This was no more apparent than when the U.K Retail Sales numbers came out last week. The figures were twice as good as what were expected yet Sterling barely finished positive for the day. It now sits underneath 1.80, a level that was previously providing support, but is now acting as resistance. If the GBPAUD cannot regain this level….and soon….some analysts predict we could see a sell off all the way down to 1.75.
Let’s also not forget about the Greenback, which once again, comes under the spotlight on Friday as one of the most important data sets that comes out of the U.S. each month, the Unemployment figures, are set to be released. They have targeted 200,000 new jobs to be added to the U.S Economy…..and anything shy of this could cause an adverse reaction to the Dollar, putting question marks around further tapering of the QE program and the mooted 2015 interest rate rises. Expect a busy end to the week.