Australian Dollar
Expected Range 0.7450 – 0.7580
The Australian Dollar is just holding on above 75 US cents this morning after falling from intraday highs of 0.7636. The AUD spent most of Thursday local time above 0.76 cents against the USD but the introduction of the UK markets saw the currency cool off as the UK markets reacted to the minutes from the Federal Reserve where Yellen’s sentiment of caution was prevalent. There is still an expectation that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates twice this year however the timeline remains up in the air. Local data is limited in the back half of this week after the RBA decision to keep interest rates on hold. Despite keeping the rates on hold the strong AUD has driven speculation of a rate cut in Australia in the near future. The RBA has previously been vocal in stating that it would like the AUD to weaken to help support the Australian economy and help to drive growth.
New Zealand Dollar
Expected Range 0.6750 – 0.6850
The New Zealand dollar is down from yesterday’s open after US unemployment claims were beat expectations and is currently buying 67.74 US cents. After a quiet news day in New Zealand the focus was on external factor and the US unemployment continues to beat market expectations and appears to show that the US jobs market is continuing to perform well. No local data out today.
Great British Pound
Expected Range 1.8600 – 1.8850
The Great British Pound was able to recover most of the losses from the day before and is currently buying 1.8725 Australian Dollars. The move was mostly off the back of a weakening AUD as it lost ground against the USD as well. The GBP did hit intraday lows of 1.8510 which was just shy of the 12 month low of 1.8490 before recovering strongly to open where it is this morning. The market will be looking toward the Manufacturing Production data out tonight with the market expecting a contraction of 0.2%.
Majors
Expected Range N/A
The US unemployment claims came in ahead of market expectations at 267k which continues to give support to the idea that the jobs market in the US is travelling along quite nicely. Janet Yellen of the Federal Reserve is due to speak at the time of writing with the markets taking a very keen interest in what she has to say and to see if any hints are dropped about when the next rate increase may be. To Europe and the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has used his speech overnight to stress that the ECB will continue to do whatever it can in a bid to increase inflation levels closer to the 2% levels that it is targeting.