Aussie bounces off seven-month lows on mixed US jobs data
Daily Currency Update
Friday’s session saw the Australian dollar rise from seven-month lows of 0.7445 to trade at 0.7530. The rise, which was due to a ‘mixed’ US non-farm payrolls report, brought to an end a week of losses for commodity currencies against the USD. The NZD also rose from 0.6950 to 0.7036 which saw the AUD/NZD cross rate slipping 15 points to 1.0700.Despite the US jobs report beating market expectations on the ‘jobs created’ metric, other details within the report were less positive, resulting in the market tempering rate hike expectations from the Fed. 850k jobs were added to the economy however the unemployment rate rose from 5.8% to 5.9%, the participation rate was net unchanged and hourly earnings were muted. Analysts also noted that state and local government hiring contributed a surprisingly high 193k jobs.
Looking at the day ahead, we have ANZ job ads and the MI inflation gauge; both expected to be strong reads. Across the pond we will get an update on ANZ commodity prices before we head offshore for PMI updates from China, India and Singapore. Also worth noting the US will be observing a public holiday for independence day.
Key Movers
quity markets rallied after the payrolls numbers were released, pushed higher by market expectations that the Fed will not be pressured by the labour market to bring forward their monetary policy agenda. The S&P500 was up nearly 1% and reached a record high, along with the NASDAQ.Commodity prices were also higher, helping to reverse four consecutive days of losses for commodity linked currencies against the USD. Notably, oil was only 0.2% higher as the OPEC meeting failed to deliver an agreement on supply however talks are set to restart today.
Expected Ranges
- AUD/USD: 0.7450 - 0.7600 ▲
- AUD/EUR: 0.6290 - 0.6360 ▲
- GBP/AUD: 1.8260 - 1.8480 ▲
- AUD/NZD: 1.0650 - 1.0750 ▼
- AUD/CAD: 0.9250 - 0.9290 ▲