FX Roundup: Aussie dollar bounces on positive jobs data
The Australian dollar rose nearly 1% during the Asian session on Thursday, after data indicated that unemployment in the country had declined from 6.2% in September to 5.9% last month.
At 1547 GMT, the Aussie was up 0.68% against its US counterpart at US$0.7103. However, the New Zealand dollar slipped into the red, falling 0.64% to change hands at US$0.6517.
Kit Juckes, head of forex at Societe Generale, said: “The [Australian] data was very strong but the series does deserve the scepticism with which the market usually greets it. The 12-month average is a 26k gain, the range is from +59k to -11k.
“AUD/NZD got a big lift from the release and is back at 1.09. We remain long-term bulls of this cross. We remain long-term bears of NZD/USD, but there is too, a tactical case for using this AUD bounce to go short, given that it doesn't tend to de-couple from commodity prices for long.”
In Latin America, the dollar traded higher against the Colombian peso (up 2.22%), Brazilian real (up 0.85%), Chilean peso (up 0.52%) and Mexican peso (up 0.06%). The greenback also rose 0.40% against its Canadian counterpart exchanging at CAD$1.3315
“With commodity prices looking soft again, it's still premature to look for lasting turn in AUD, CAD or NZD (or emerging market commodity currencies for that matter),” Juckes added.
Among the major forex crosses, the pound fell 0.07% against the dollar to exchange at $1.5202, while the euro rose 0.08% to change hands at $1.0752. The dollar fell 0.10% against the Swiss franc exchanging at CHF1.0036, but rose 0.09% against the yen exchanging at JPY122.97.
Jane Foley, senior FX strategist at Rabobank, said, “Following last week’s strong US payrolls release we brought forward our EUR/USD1.05 target to a 3 mth forecast and now see risk that EUR/USD will move towards 1.04 by the middle of next year.
“That said we remain reluctant to put parity on the forecast table and will likely refrain from refreshing this view at least ahead of the outcomes of the December ECB and Federal Reserve policy meetings.”