- Australian Dollar (AUD) under pressure after Australian unemployment hits 22 year high
- Strained US – Chinese relations add to the risk off tone
- US initial jobless claims show labour market’s recovery is starting to struggle
- US retail sales bounce back but tough times ahead
After two straight sessions of gains the Australian Dollar US Dollar (AUD/USD) exchange rate is moving lower on Thursday. At 13:15 UTC, AUD/USD trades -0.3% at US$0.6985.
US-China tensions are weighing on risk sentiment in the broader market heading towards the US open. The latest developments in the escalating war of words between the two powers was reported in the New York Times. President Trump is considering a US travel ban on the 92 million members of the Chinese Communist Party. The US senate committee is also set to vote on a bill banning TikTok and WeChat, firms which it considers pose a security threat.
These moves would be in retaliation for the national security law China imposed in Hong Kong and go to show how increasingly strained US – Chinese ties have become over a range of issues.
The Australian Dollar is not only risk sensitive, but it is also considered a China proxy, as a result the Aussie Dollar fell.
Domestic data was also unsupportive of the Aussie Dollar. The official Australian unemployment rate jumped 0.3% to 7.4% in June, its highest level since 1998. Almost one million Australians are unemployed, and this figure is despite a rebound in the number of jobs added. 210,800 new jobs were added, almost making up for the 264,000 lost the previous month.
The data painted a grim picture of the Australian labour market even as lockdown measures were eased and the economy reopened. Looking ahead there is still likely to be some impact from Melbourne being back under lockdown, in the July figures.
Mixed data from the US has done little to support sentiment. On the one hand, US retail sales jumped an ahead of forecast 7.5% month on month in June as lockdown restrictions continued easing. This comes following a 17.7% surge in retail sales in May. Clearly there is still pent up demand coming through. However, with the labour market under pressure, retail sales could soon be falling lower.
Initial jobless claims were disappointing. An above forecast 1.3 million Americans signed up for unemployment benefits last week. This was only down 10,000 from the previous week as the numbers suggest that the recovery in the labour market was stalling.
