The Australian dollar fell today, largely ignoring the shockingly good employment report. While the currency spiked immediately after the release, it retreated almost immediately. By now, though, the Aussie has managed to trim losses and even trades flat against a number of most-traded peers.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the seasonally adjusted number of employed people increased by 5,900 in March. Experts totally missed the mark with their forecasts of a big slump of 33,000. Full-time employment decreased slightly by 400, while part-time employment gained by 6,400. Furthermore, the unemployment rate increased just by a notch from 5.1% to 5.2%, whereas analysts had predicted a bigger increase to 5.4%.
Released separately, the Melbourne Institute Consumer Inflation Expectations rose to 4.6% in April from 4.0% in the previous month.
Despite the surprisingly good employment data, the Australian currency remained soft. Analysts noted that in March the lockdown measures were just starting to be implemented, and it is the April report that will show how the pandemic affected the labor market when the quarantine was in full effect. For now, markets remain in the risk-off mode. And that weighs on riskier currencies, especially the Australian and New Zealand dollars.
AUD/USD fell from 0.6316 to 0.6298 as of 7:26 GMT today but rebounded from the daily low of 0.6264. EUR/AUD was at about 1.7277 after opening at 1.7261 and rising to the daily high of 1.7350. AUD/JPY was about flat at 67.85.
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