The Australian dollar rose today, though gains were limited. Macroeconomic data in Australia itself as well as in China, its biggest trading partner, was mixed, giving the currency no edge.
National Australia Bank reported that indices for both business conditions and business confidence were at +1 in August. While not a terrible result by itself, it was a decline from +3 for business conditions and from +4 for business confidence. Alan Oster, NAB Group Chief Economist, commented:
Business confidence and our other forward looking indicators suggest there is unlikely to be an imminent turnaround in business conditions. While conditions are still positive, they have now been below average for some time and point to a significant loss of momentum in private demand.
As for China’s indicators, annual consumer inflation remained at 2.8% in August, unchanged from the previous month. Economists were expecting a slowdown to 2.6%. Producer prices dropped 0.8% in August, year-on-year, after falling 0.3% in the preceding month. The reading was within market expectations.
AUD/USD edged up from 0.6861 to 0.6866 as of 17:52 GMT today, bouncing from the daily low of 0.6849. EUR/AUD was down from 1.6094 to 1.6085, retreating from the daily high 1.6118. AUD/JPY gained from 73.56 to 73.75.
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