The Australian dollar experienced a terrible week, falling for four days in a row against the Japanese yen and for every single day of the week against its US and New Zealand counterparts as well as the euro. Even Thursday’s positive employment data was not able to provide support for the currency.
Australian employment demonstrated huge employment growth of 121,000 in August (seasonally adjusted), which was far bigger than the predicted 15,200. As a result, the unemployment rate fell from 6.4 percent to 6.1 percent, a reading that was also better than analysts’ expectations.
The Aussie climbed after the report but resumed its decline immediately and continued to fall steadily till the close of trading yesterday. Commodity currencies were faring poorly this week due to the strength of the US dollar, but the Australian currency demonstrated especially weak performance, even against its New Zealand counterpart that was not too strong either.
AUD/USD sank from 0.9099 to close 0.9042 — the weakest settlement since March 20. EUR/AUD advanced from 1.4201 to 1.4321. AUD/JPY dipped from 97.44 to 97.05, and AUD/NZD declined from 1.1116 to 1.1097, touching the low of 1.1063.
If you have any questions, comments or opinions regarding the Australian Dollar,
feel free to post them using the commentary form below.