The Australian dollar did not move far in either direction today amid conflicting fundamentals. The currency has an upward bias against the Japanese yen and slightly downward bias versus the US dollar and the euro.
Yesterday’s report about business confidence from National Australia Bank was positive, showing a small increase of the index from 4 in March to 6 in April. Today’s housing data was not so good. The House Price Index grew 1.7 percent in the first quarter of this year from the previous three months, missing the forecast increase of 3.0 percent by a wide margin. Home loans slid 0.9 percent in March from the preceding month on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Economic data did not provide a clear picture about the Australian economy, giving no help for the Aussie in determining the direction for movement. Saying that, it is worth to note that the currency was able to rally against the yen similar to its Canadian counterpart.
AUD/USD went down from 0.9360 to 0.9352 and EUR/AUD ticked up from 1.4693 to 1.4710 as of 5:25 GMT today. AUD/JPY rallied from 95.30 to 95.58 yesterday and went up to 95.66 today.
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