The Australian Dollar (AUD) exchange rate continued its slide against the major pairings of US Dollar (USD) and Sterling (GBP) on Tuesday.
The only data released from the domestic market was the NAB Business Confidence results which declined by 3 points to zero, the lowest level since before the Federal Election in 2013. The mining and retail sectors reported the largest decline in confidence, the report showed. The theme of the report indicated that Business hasn’t reacted to the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) rate cut last week.
Today the Australian Dollar (AUD) exchange rate will be influenced by the release of domestic data including home loan figures and investment lending results for January, which will released at 10:30 AEST. The home loans figures are forecast to drop from 2.7% to 2.0% from Decembers results. Prior to this at 09:30 AEST Westpac will release their Consumer Confidence figure for March. We will also see the release of some Chinese data today that includes Retail Sales and Industrial Production for February which will likely have an effect on the Australian Dollar (AUD) today.
Australian Dollar (AUD) to US Dollar (USD) trading at six year lows.
The Australian Dollar (AUD) to US Dollar (USD) exchange rate has reached a six year low of 0.7601 overnight Tuesday after trading at 0.7839 only one month ago after the release of poor business sentiment from Australia.
ANZ Senior Foreign Exchange Manager Sam Tuck said “The business outlook definitely had an impact on the Australian dollar during the Australian session and that carried on into the London session,” The reading reminded financial markets that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) would likely cut rates again as the US Federal Reserve considers raising rates, giving the US dollar a boost.
The major releases for the week concerning the AUD/USD pairing will be out on Thursday which will lead with the Australian Unemployment Rate, which is forecast to remain at 6.4% and followed up with the USD Retail Sales and this week’s USD Jobless Claims later in the evening, which are both forecast for positive results. The Retails Sales figures are expected to come out at 0.3% up from -0.8% last month, and Jobless Claims expected to reduce from 320K to 305K from the previous week.
The Australian Dollar to US Dollar (AUD/USD) Exchange rate had bounced back a little and was this morning trading at 0.7629 at 09:00 AEST.