AUD Opens Weaker with Middle East Conflict

AUD

The Aussie Dollar opens down against the majors this morning while the ASX ended Friday's session +0.4% higher with the major banks outperforming. Asian equities were mixed to close the week with the Hang Seng adding 1.5% while the Nikkei fell 0.1%. A relatively quiet week ahead for the Aussie dollar with NAB Business Confidence to be released tomorrow and major inflation data from China on Friday.

USD

AUDUSD opens slightly lower at 0.6357 after touching the 0.64 handle on Friday evening. Wall St. rounded out last week on a positive note with the NASDAQ closing +1.6%, the S&P 500 +1.2%, and the Dow Jones +0.9%. Despite the US Unemployment Rate ticking up to 3.8%, the US economy added 336k jobs in September, almost doubling expectations. With prior months also being revised up substantially, the economy is clearly doing much better than previously thought, even with higher interest rates. US banks will be closed in observance of Columbus Day today, with a data-heavy week kicking off with PPI on Wednesday evening.

EUR

AUDEUR peaked at 0.6039 on Friday afternoon before falling to today's open at 0.6024. The DAX and CAC gained +1.1% and +0.9% respectively. Today we'll see German Industrial Production m/m and Sentix Investor Confidence for the Eurozone. Overall, a quiet week ahead for the euro. 

GBP

AUDGDP opened slightly down this morning at 0.5210 after peaking at 0.5223 on Friday afternoon. A quiet couple of days ahead of Thursday's monthly GDP release, with expectations of +0.2% growth after the previous -0.5% slump.

NZD

AUDNZD steadily declined since Thursday evening, opening this morning at 1.0649 ahead of another quiet week on the data front. On Thursday morning, we'll see the Food Price Index m/m.