The Australian dollar rallied today, boosted mainly by the improving market sentiment. Australia’s macroeconomic data released over the trading session was somewhat mixed, but mostly good.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that employment shrank by 3,900 in July on a seasonally adjusted basis. That is compared to the forecast of an increase by 15,000 and the previous month’s revised hefty gain by 58,200. Looking deeper into the report, though, the situation did not seem that bad. The decline was primarily result of the drop of part-time employment by 23,200. Full-time employment actually showed a decent growth by 19,300. The unemployment rate unexpectedly ticked down from 5.4% to 5.3%.
Released separately, the Melbourne Institute Inflation Expectations were at 4.0% in August, up from 3.9% in July.
The market sentiment was cautiously positive today on news that Turkey will receive investment from Qatar and trade talks between the United States and China will resume.
AUD/USD rose from 0.7236 to 0.7274 as of 10:22 GMT today, bouncing from the daily low of 0.7214. EUR/AUD declined from 1.5667 to 1.5635 after touching the session maximum of 1.5713 earlier. AUD/JPY rose from 80.09 to 80.64.
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