The week started seemingly bad for the Australian dollar as fundamentals looked rather unfavorable to the currency. Some of the domestic macroeconomic indicators released on Monday were bad, and there was troubling news about China-US trade negotiations. But the Aussie did not perform particularly poorly and even managed to gain on some major rivals.
The Commonwealth Bank Flash Manufacturing PMI dropped to 49.4 in September from 50.9 in August. A reading below 50.0 indicates contraction. That was the first contraction since the survey started in 2016. But on a more positive note, the Commonwealth Bank Flash Services PMI rebounded strongly to 52.5 this month from 49.1 the month before.
By the end of Friday’s session, news came out that the Chinese delegation cut short its visit to the United States, canceling the planned trip to the US farming states. But Chinese Vice-agriculture minister Han Jun stated that the cancelation has “nothing to do” with the trade talks and the visit to the farming states was never confirmed in the first place anyway.
AUDUSD was at 0.6772 as of 12:17 GMT today, trading near the opening level of 0.6769. EUR/AUD declined from 1.6263 to 1.6222. AUD/JPY edged down from 72.90 to 72.77.
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