australian-dollar-coins - AUD

The Australian dollar was higher against the US dollar on Wednesday afternoon after RBA Governor Lowe advocated more government spending and defended the central bank’s decision to keep interest rates on hold. At the same time economic data from the United States mostly came in ahead of expectations.

AUD/USD was higher by 15 pips (+0.23%) to 0.6754 with a daily price range of 0.673 to 0.678 as of 3pm GMT. The currency pair rose through the day before stalling well below 0.68. The gains add to the 0.58% gain on Tuesday, leaving the exchange rate higher on the week.

AUD/USD – US labour market and the service sector data better than expected

Forecasts for Friday’s important US jobs report have been juiced up by data from the US labour market and the service sector that came in better than expected. Private sector jobs growth rose by the most since 2015 and the headline services figure from the ISM was best since August. The US ADP employment change for January was 291,000 and the ISM non-manufacturing index came in at 55.5, up from 55 last month.

The Aussie

The Aussie continues to benefit from the tailwind of a more optimistic attitude in markets towards the coronavirus outbreak and the likely effect it will have on global economic activity. While the virus continues to spread and China is increasingly on lockdown to contain it, the World Health Organisation has held back from calling it a pandemic. While risks remain, the prevailing view among experts is that the global economic recovery this year might well be delayed or curtailed because of the coronavirus but will not be prevented.

Helping gains in the Aussie today was chief Austrian central banker Philip Lowe. In a speech in Wednesday Governor Lowe advised Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government to increase spending, which if followed would have a positive effect on economic growth. Lowe did not offer any suggestion interest rates were heading higher, instead he suggested the government should take advantage of the low rates to invest into the economy in areas such as climate change in order to boost productivity.


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