The Australian dollar was stable today, staying flat against most other currencies, though fell versus the Japanese yen, which managed to recover from the earlier losses to trade as one of the strongest currencies on the Forex market on Friday. The Aussie fell against the New Zealand dollar too as it was also among the strongest, rising to the highest level in a year and a half.
Market analysts speculated that one of the factors supporting the Aussie as well as many other currencies was the weakness of the US dollar. The greenback was weakening after the Federal Reserve made its dovish monetary policy statement, even though the currency was rising initially after the announcement. Another positive factor for the Australian currency was the recovery of the global economy from the coronavirus pandemic. The economic rebound was especially strong in China — Australia’s biggest trading partner and consumer of Australian exports.
Domestic macroeconomic indicators were also positive for the Australian dollar. While there were no economic releases in Australia today, yesterday’s employment data was surprisingly positive. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that Australian employers added as much as 111,000 jobs in August. That was a total shock to experts who were anticipating a drop of 40,000. Gains were registered in both part-time and full-time employment. The unemployment rate edged down from 7.5% to 6.8%, whereas economists had predicted an uptick to 7.7%. The participation rate rose slightly from 64.7% to 64.8%.
The surprise surge of coronavirus cases in the Victoria state remains a major hurdle to the Aussie, though the number of new cases was in decline lately and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that it was encouraging.
AUD/USD was flat at 0.7310 as of 11:31 GMT today. EUR/AUD was also flat at about 1.6198. At the same time, AUD/JPY dropped from 76.60 to 76.34 and AUD/NZD tumbled from 1.0821 to 1.0774.
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