The Australian dollar dropped against other most-traded currencies today despite better-than-expected domestic data. Risk aversion, which prevailed on the Forex market after the announcement of new US tariffs on Chinese goods, did not allow the Aussie to profit from positive macroeconomic reports.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics released a couple of economic indicators today.
Retail sales rose 0.4% in June from the previous month, seasonally adjusted, after increasing 0.1% in May. Analysts had predicted a bit smaller increase of 0.3%.
The Producer Price Index also rose 0.4%, the same as in May. The indicator beat expectations too as economists were anticipating just a 0.2% increase.
Yet new tariffs on Chinese imports announced by US President Donald Trump yesterday hurt the confidence of investors, making them prefer safer currencies, not riskier commodity ones. That hurt the Aussie during the previous trading session and continues to harm the currency today.
AUD/USD dipped from 0.6800 to 0.6789 as of 11:34 GMT today after rising to the session maximum of 0.6819 intraday. EUR/AUD climbed from 1.6295 to 1.6347, bouncing from the session minimum of 1.6256. AUD/JPY declined from 72.97 to 72.54.
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