The Australian Dollar has continued its short range around the 0.73c mark for the past 10 days.
The RBA yesterday kept interest rates on hold at record lows of 0.1% and commented that they will stay there until 2024.
The Australian dollar has seen pressure from falling Iron Ores prices, which have dropped from over $200/tonne in July to $117/tonne this week, a fall over over 40% as China winds back their consumption of Ore for now.
In more positive news for the local currency the trade balance figures were released and even with the falling price of Iron Ore, Australia has seen booming LNG and coal exports offset the Ore losses, giving Australian exports a lift and seeing a 4% increase on export figures for the month.
This see-saw action is seeing the AUD hover around that 0.73 mark and with our high tier data already been released this week, the markets will take direction from USD figures later in the week along with the risk sentiment in general.
We still sit in a concerning area of a rejection at 0.73c and a potential drop back to the 0.71c mark we seen in August, or a breakthrough a move up towards 0.74c.
As always, keep risk at front of mind and feel free to call me for any assistance.
Other news items and currencies of note this week
GBP/AUD - The GBP has struggled over the past 7-10 days after the issues they were seeing at the petrol pumps in the UK, this concern seems to have been lifted overnight as the Army started delivering the petrol as the focus shifted from the pumps to news of the Bank of England looking to increase interest rates in the UK.
Slowly moving back towards the $1.87 mark, after reaching a top of $1.90 in August.
NZD/AUD - The RBNZ meet today and the expectation is that the Kiwi's will be the first major reserve bank to move interest rates north, this will play a key role is their currency is to move today more than normal.
Even though it's fallen from it's highest point at 0.97c, we still sit at a 10 month high at 0.95+ currently, still a very good time to be moving funds from NZ back to Australia.
EUR/USD - This is now struggling to get back above 1.16 over the past few days, The eurozone is also seeing issue with supply and increasing energy prices which is having a negative effect on it's currency. The USD has not been moving much itself off any particular news in the past 2-3 days and this is why we continue to see many currencies in a tight range for now.