The Australian dollar rose against almost all major currencies today amid generally positive market sentiment. It looks like hopes for a coronavirus vaccine outweighed concerns about the surge of new coronavirus cases.
Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said that Australia’s effective unemployment rate stands at 13.3%, almost two times the official rate. He stated:
The official unemployment rate is 7.1 per cent, and the market is expecting for that to go a bit higher later this week.
He added further, explaining the disparity:
The effective unemployment rate takes into account not only those who are officially unemployed but also those who have left the labour force altogether as well as those on zero hours, and that is around 13.3 per cent right now.
On a positive note, Frydenberg talked about the second round of financial help to households. About five million Australians with low income will receive a A$750 payment.
As for macroeconomic releases, there were no noteworthy reports in Australia and other parts of the world for that matter. The rest of the week will be different, with several central banks announcing their monetary policy decisions. As for Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics will release employment data on Thursday. Market participants expect significant growth of employment by 100,000 as the economy was recovering from the coronavirus pandemic and measures to contain it.
AUD/USD rose from 0.6948 to 0.6968 as of 9:48 GMT today. AUD/JPY gained from 74.29 to 74.60. Meanwhile, EUR/AUD was little changed at about 1.6236 after touching the daily high of 1.6287 earlier.
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