Daily Currency Update

AUD - Australian Dollar

The Aussie has been on a nice run as it touched on a 12 month high at 0.7269 earlier in the week, but has come down to open at 0.7160 this morning after sliding due to strong US PMI data. From a technical perspective, traders will watch to see if the AUD can break the 0.7200 barrier again and push upwards based on the talks at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium later in the week.

Apart from those talks, it is a quiet week for the AUD in terms of local macroeconomic news with only the Australian Bureau of Statistics releasing figures on construction work and private capital expenditure on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.

Key Movers

European Flash Services PMI data for France and Germany came back lower than expected on Friday afternoon, with figures of 51.9 for French data compared to its forecast of 56.3, and German data figures of 50.8 versus a forecast of 55.3.

In the upcoming week, we can expect to see some major movement in the USD with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on Thursday night at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium. As head of the central bank which controls short-term interest rates, his speech will be scrutinised as it is often used to drop subtle clues regarding future monetary policy.

Expected Ranges