The Australian Dollar was weaker against the Pound, Euro and US Dollar on Monday as economists expect a jobs report to show that unemployment went up in the South Pacific nation.
There was some bad news for the Australian economy over the weekend as Toyota Motor Corp announced that it was ending its operations in the country. Already Ford and General Motors have abandoned production in the land down under. The still high ‘Aussie’ was being blamed for the company’s decision to pull out but analysts countered that by saying that Toyota’s withdrawal was inevitable.
“Had the ‘Aussie’ been lower, it would have taken the pressure off some of the manufacturers, but they still have to face a range of difficult challenges to do with the lack of productivity and competitiveness in many parts of the Australian economy”, said HSBC’s chief economist for Australia.
Economists are expecting a jobs report due for release on the 13th of February will show that the jobless rate climbed to 5.9%, the highest level since 2009. The currency could find support if the jobs figure surprises the markets and comes in positively however.
“If the jobs number is strong then maybe the market sells off a bit further in rates and the currency gets some support. If we get a divergence between what commodity prices are doing and what the ‘Aussie’ is doing, then that will start to worry the RBA again. Gains from stronger data maybe acceptable,” said an economist at JP Morgan Chase & CO.
Tuesday also sees the release of the latest home loans and house price data.
Australian Dollar (AUD) Exchange Rates
[table width=”100%” colwidth=”50|50|50|50|50″ colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Currency, ,Currency,Rate ,
Australian Dollar,
,US Dollar,0.8920 ,
Australian Dollar,,Pound Sterling,0.5443,
Australian Dollar,,Euro,0.6541 ,
Australian Dollar,,New Zealand Dollar,1.0794 ,
Pound Sterling,,Australian Dollar,1.8366 ,
US Dollar,,Australian Dollar,1.1207 ,
Euro,,Australian Dollar,1.5284 ,
[/table]
Comments are closed.