Australian Dollar
Expected Range 0.6900 – 0.7100
The Australian dollar opens this morning up slightly after touching lows of 0.6909 a level not seen since September of last year. The AUD was helped by late gains after unemployment claims in the US rose unexpectedly to 284k. During US trade the AUD was able to rally 80 points to end the day at 0.6995. In contrast the market reaction to the Australian unemployment rate released earlier in the day despite coming in ahead of expectations was muted. The unemployment rate improved to 5.8% which is the lowest level since June 2014. With limited data coming out locally the focus of the day will be the US data out data including the Retail Sales data.
New Zealand Dollar
Expected Range 0.6400 – 0.6570
The New Zealand Dollar opens this morning 75 points down from yesterday at 0.6452 after a late recovery helps it up from the intraday low of 0.6418. The NZD has been unable to find support this year with only one day where it has opened higher than the previous days close since the beginning of January. The intraday low of 0.6418 was the lowest level since October last year but a rally during the Wall Street Session helped by negative unemployment claims data in the US. Looking forward to today the main focus will be overseas data including the US data out this evening.
Great British Pound
Expected Range 2.0450 – 2.0850
The Bank of England voted 8 – 1 to keep rates at record lows of 0.5% and at the same time kept the asset purchase program untouched which gave the GBP a boost against most major currencies straight after the decision. After reaching highs of 2.0856 in the lead up to the European session we did see the GBP pull back against the AUD during Wall Street trade and we open today at 2.0630 slightly up from the lows of 2.0598. The GBP opens up slightly against the NZD (2.2260) and the USD (1.4415).
Majors
Expected Range N/A
The US released the weekly unemployment claims data which had an unexpected jump to 284k up from 277k. The market was expecting a slight drop in the number of claims and as a result we saw the US lose ground against most currency pairs. With Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates last month there was some concern that the jobs data was slightly weaker than they were hoping for so the data out last night will continue to shine the spotlight on the US jobs market. Friday will see the release of the Retails Sales m/m and PPI m/m data and will be the main focus of the day.