The AUD fell sharply last night against most of the majors including the GBP and USD.
The Bank of England decided to leave Interest Rates unchanged last night, quoting from the BoE website; ‘The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee at its meeting on 8 October voted to maintain Bank Rate at 0.5%. The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of purchased assets financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £375 billion.’
On the Aussie front, the employment figures came in at expectations; a grand total of 29,700 jobs lost and an increase to 6.1% for the Unemployment Rate (from 6%). This was bad news for the AUD initially as the AUD fell sharply, however, throughout the day the AUD gained back those losses and then some. This was mainly due to the perceived legitimacy of the Australian Bureau of Statistics result. The ABS has come under scrutiny recently because they had changed definitions of the variables that influence the unemployment figures. This happened two months ago and as a result the Unemployment Rate soared to 6.4%. This 6.4% figure has now been declared as a gross over estimate of unemployment.
Today we have home loan data and an announcement from the Reserve Bank of Australia; These ared due out at 10.30AM and 10.45AM AEST respectively. Tonight we have the UK Trade balance out, which is expected to be good for the GBP as the trade balance last month was -10.2 billion and this month the expectations are -9.6 Billion.
This should end the GBP/AUD slightly stronger heading into the weekend if expectation is realised.