The Australian dollar started the trading week with losses against other most-traded currencies. The general market sentiment seemed to be relatively optimistic due to the positive news about the US-China trade negotiations. But trade data from China released on Monday did not look good, and that is one of the possible reasons for the weak performance of the Aussie.
Markets opened on a positive footing due to good news about progress in the Sino-US trade talks. US President Donald Trump said that the United States achieved a “very substantial phase one deal” with China and that “Phase two will start almost immediately” after the first phase is signed. Under the deal, China will buy $40-$50 billion worth of US agricultural goods. In response, the USA will not implement higher tariffs that should have taken effect on October 15.
Yet now market participants are becoming more skeptical about the deal. While Chinese state media talked about the meeting in a positive light, they did not mention the word “deal”. Additionally, there are plenty of important issues that remained unresolved, not to mention that the already implemented tariffs remained in place. Overall, it looks like investors are not going to be too optimistic until an actual deal is signed.
China’s trade balance surplus widened to $39.65 billion in September from $34.83 billion in the previous month. That is instead of falling to $33.3 billion as analysts had predicted. While it may look like a positive development, the report was actually not good at all. Exports fell by 3.2%, year-on-year, while imports posted an even bigger decline by 8.5%.
AUD/USD declined from 0.6787 to 0.6764 as of 15:25 GMT today. EUR/AUD advanced from 1.6242 to 1.6292, touching the high of 1.6351 intraday. AUD/JPY slipped from 73.54 to 73.35, while its daily low was at 72.99.
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