Thursday night in Malta was expected to be a non-event, a meeting of Europe’s monetary policy and a routine speech from European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi. Draghi however shocked investors and spoke about further Quantitative Easing (QE) moving forward and a possible rate cut in December. These announcements have seen investors sell off from the Euro with a loss of around 2% against a basket of currencies as the AUD/EUR exchange rate hit a high of 0.6578, the highest since August.
Investors will look forward this week to some key data releases from Germany to see if there is some positive news to come out of their economy. Wednesday will see retail sales figures released, followed by consumer confidence. Thursday will see the release of the unemployment figures and Friday will see Germany’s CPI figures announced. This week should see plenty of movement in the AUD/EUR exchange rate
The AUD/EUR exchange rate is trading at 0.6548 at 09:00 AEST
No local data is due out today, and not much at all across the board. So as we look forward to the week ahead, the AUD/NZD exchange rate will come into focus with some very important data releases. The AUD/NZD exchange rate, after almost reaching parity early in April took a huge run in favour of the AUD, reaching $1.13 in July and then again in September, has started moving back at a rapid rate in the past few weeks seeing a low last week in the $1.05 range.
Tuesday morning will see the NZD Trade Balance figures released, before Wednesday’s Australian CPI figures, which are expected to come in higher at 1.8% vs 1.5% last month. The RBNZ then meets on Thursday with the possibility of an interest rate cut from the current 2.75%. The large swing in April came from talks of Interest rate cuts in NZ, so if they keep them on hold we may see the rate spiral back towards the lows of April, however if the RBNZ decide to cut, the AUD should see some gains back before their own RBA decision next week.
The AUD/NZD exchange rate is trading at $1.0692 at 09:00 AEST