Currency Update - Tuesday 12th November 2019

AUD

A very quiet day to start the week with the US commemorating Veteran’s Day. Little news to report as the Australian Dollar traveled sideways across most of the majors. Risk sentiment remained largely unchanged in a very flat market with very light trading. The only real news came from a Chinese data release last night with new bank loans dipping to 22-month low in the month of October with more easing expected. Little reaction to the data but today trader’s will be back at their desks and the next data relevant data release will be the NAB Business Confidence out at 11:30am.

USD

The Australian Dollar spent a day going sideways in a tight 17 pip range as the US market observed Veteran’s Day. Today we open roughly where we started on Friday with markets holding on to 0.6850 levels. US equity markets were flat while the USD was slightly softer across the board. Expect another quiet day without much scheduled for release. The most significant data coming out will be the FOMC Member Clarida who will be speaking on monetary policy, price stability and bond yields at 9:30pm this evening.

EUR

The bids for Euro won out yesterday with the Australian Dollar creeping marginally lower against the Euro as markets cling to 0.62 levels at the time of writing. European equities opened in the red after a day where the majority of Asian indices lost ground. The Hang Seng lost 2.6% as protests in Hong Kong become increasingly violent. A French bank holiday kept trading light and data was otherwise quiet across the board. Looking ahead we have another relatively subdued day leading into tonight where we German ZEW Economic Sentiment as the lone moderate impact piece of Euro data.

GBP

The Australian Dollar took a hit overnight falling to a low of 0.5315 before recovering to 0.5329 at the time of writing. The knock came from news that the UK would avoid a technical recession as we received confirmation that their Q3 GDP figures would come in at 0.3%. While the forecast was 0.4% it was enough for traders to put their bids in for Pound Sterling, sending Aussie lower. UK has more data out this evening with the Average Earning Index in addition to some low impact data out at 8:30pm.

NZD

The Australian Dollar has extended its recent string of losses against the NZD reaching a low of 1.0758 before coming back to the 1.0769 levels at the time of writing. Inflation Expectations are out today at 1pm so expect to see some movement as traders absorb the data and determine what impact it will have on future rate decisions. RBNZ will be making its decision tomorrow with the expectation of a cut to 0.75% from 1%.