AUD Holding Ground Into the Weekend
AUD
The AUD had a relatively subdued session of trade, except against the USD where gains were slow and steady. Asian markets have bounced back from their sell-off earlier in the week with the Nikkei up 0.7%, Hang Seng gaining 2.9% and China’s CSI 2% higher. The ASX rallied on Thursday finishing up 0.5% with the large iron-ore miners contributing to the gains. Despite recent lockdown extensions in Sydney since the outbreak of the highly infectious delta variant, yesterday NSW reported 239 new locally acquired Covid cases in a 24-hour period, the biggest daily rise since the pandemic began. With even tighter restrictions set to begin today, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has requested 300 military personnel to help enforce the lockdowns. Only low-tier local data on the calendar today with Aussie PPI Q2 due at 11:30am, investors are likely playing close attention to the increasing covid outbreaks in Sydney.
USD
The AUDUSD pair pushed north amidst the broader USD weakness and assisted by commodity gains, topping 0.7413 overnight before coming in to trade at a rate of 0.7399 at the time of writing. US Equities made record highs overnight, both Dow Jones and the S&P500 were up a modest 0.4% while the Nasdaq was up a modest 0.1%. Data last night saw the US Q2 GDP print at +6.5% QoQ, up from a negatively revised 6.3% though well short of expectations of 8.4%. Personal Consumption rose 11.8% to beat expectations of 10.5% while Core PCE was 6.1% as expected. Also released and weekly jobless claims were weak with initial claims down slightly to 400k though this was short of expectations of 385k while continuing claims rose slightly to 3.269 mio to also fall short of expectations of 3.183 mio. Little in the way of data today with only the US Personal income and outlays data for June released this evening.
EUR
The AUDEUR pair trading at almost identical levels seen to yesterday morning, trading at a rate of 0.6223 this morning. European Equities were up, the DAX making gains of 0.5% and the CAC was up 0.4%. In some early data printed for the Eurozone, German unemployment fell by 91,000 while the jobless rate fell to 5.7%, with both figures exceeding expectations. The Eurozone’s July Economic Confidence also rose to 119 which surpassed forecasts of 118.2. Today’s data release to likely dominate Northern Hemisphere beginning with the Q2 Estimate for Eurozone GDP; activity is expected to have rebounded significantly in the quarter, alongside the gradual economic reopening, with consensus expectations for GDP growth of 1.4% q/q.
GBP
The AUDGBP made minor losses overnight, trading as low as 0.5278 a fresh 14-month low before trading at 0.5297 this morning. The London Benchmark FTSE 100 made gains of almost 1%. There have been a further 31,117 confirmed covid cases in the UK as of Thursday the second day in a row in which cases have increased. This follows a week of steadily declining numbers. Additionally, a further 85 people have died within 28 days of testing positive, bringing the UK total deaths to 129k as of Thursday. No-noteworthy data headed into the weekend, attention will be turned toward the upcoming BoE Monetary Policy meeting on Wednesday next week to see if there will be any hawkish response to the economic recovery.
NZD
The AUDNZD pair lost out in the overnight session, trading at a rate of 1.0551 at the time of writing, close to 6 month lows. There is little notable economic data to close off the week. Next week’s NZ Employment & Labor data will be of interest to market participants along with the unravelling covid outbreak in Sydney.