Australian Dollar Continues Its Correction on Weak Retail Sales

The Australian currency continued its downward trend against the Forex majors today, as the retail sales report confirmed the negative outlook for the country’s economy.

The Aussie is currently demonstrating its biggest losing streak against the US currency this year. It also fell for the second day against the euro and for the fifth day against the Japanese yen today.

The fall of the Australian dollar has started with the US debt-ceiling deal that promised to curb the global growth and continued with the macroeconomic news from Australia. The retail sales showed a seasonally adjusted month-on-month decline of 0.1 percent in June today. That was a serious blow to the currency strength, as the traders expected about 0.4 percent gain.

Yesterday, housing prices report showed a 1.9 percent yearly drop registered in the second quarter of 2011. This data pushed the currency down against the euro (getting it down from the yearly maximums) and busted the fall against the other currencies.

AUD/USD fell from 1.0780 to 1.0743 as of 18:23 GMT today, with a daily low at 1.0678 — the minimal rate since July 19. AUD/JPY declined from 83.37 to 82.56. EUR/AUD rose from 1.3158 to 1.3324 today.

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