The Pound Sterling to Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) remained firm during Friday’s trading after several pieces of upbeat UK data.
However, the Australian Dollar managed to record gains against other majors such as the New Zealand Dollar (AUD/NZD), US Dollar (AUD/USD), Canadian Dollar (AUD/CAD), and Euro (AUD/EUR) as gold headed for its biggest weekly gain in the last month.
US Unemployment Rate and Net Change in Employment ecostats will be closely eyed this afternoon and could cause major market movement.
Analyst Matthew Turner stated: ‘Unless payrolls are well out of range, it would take a lot to make people question their underlying view of the economy and gold.’
Earlier… The Pound Sterling to Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate has been trending higher as investors hedged their bets on the releasing upbeat UK Industrial and Manufacturing Production figures—and they were right to.
Industrial Production grew to 1.1% on the year in November from 1.0%, defying forecasts of a rise to 1.6%.
However, Manufacturing Production shot up on an annual basis in November from 1.7% to 2.7%. In addition, the UK Balance of Trade figures showed a narrowing in the deficit from -£9.6 billion to -£1.4 billion.
Australian Dollar to Pound Sterling (AUD/GBP) Exchange Rate Softens after Data
The ‘Aussie’ softened earlier in the session when the AiG Performance of Construction Index shrank from 45.4 to 44.4 in December.
AiG chief economist Julie Toth stated: ‘Recovery in the construction industry was looking very promising through the middle of 2014, particularly in the housing and apartment sectors. In the final months of 2014 however, this much anticipated recovery seems to have lost its momentum; we saw a noticeable deterioration across most of the key activity indicators for house building and apartment construction in November and December.’
In addition, Australian Retail Sales reached only 0.1% in November after October’s 0.4% gain. Economists had forecast a 0.2% increase.
Economist Alex Joiner stated: ‘We had held some hope that lower petrol prices would translate to people having more money in their pockets to spend on retail, but if sentiment is weak, it might be that they save that money instead of spending it.’
After a week of gaining, the Australian Dollar exchange rate has softened slightly in response to the weaker data. In addition, Australia’s largest trading partner, China, found its Producer Price Index contract by -3.3% on the year in December, slipping lower than the -3.1% forecast.
The Chinese data showed producer prices hit a two-year low as a result of tumbling energy and commodity values. Moody’s Analytics stated: ‘Producer prices remain in deflation because of falling commodity prices.’
Pound Sterling to Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) Exchange Rate Forecast
The Pound Sterling to Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate could fluctuate further in the second half of European trading with the release of the UK NIESR Gross Domestic Product Estimate.
Monday will see Australian ANZ Job Advertisement and Home Loans numbers published but UK data is thin on the ground. Tuesday will be a bit more exciting for Pound Sterling trading with the release of UK Inflation Rate ecostats.
Signs of acceleration in consumer price gains could help bring forward Bank of England (BoE) rate hike expectations.
The Pound Sterling to Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate is presently trending in the region of 1.8642 with a +0.23% market movement. The Australian Dollar to Pound Sterling (AUD/GBP) exchange rate resides at 0.5366.
