AUD

Good news today for the Australian economy as the employment report for June stunned with across-the-board strength.

The Australian dollar was promptly sold off on the confirmation that the RBA hikes rates by 50-bps, as traders seemingly bought the rumour and sold the fact.

The RBA didn’t hold back and opted for a 50-bps hike at today’s meeting, which is a first since February 2000.

With prices falling whilst futures traders increase their bullish exposure to the Australian dollar, we’re keen to see if it can hold above 0.73 and form a countertrend bounce.

Last week, AUD shorts were culled at their fastest pace since March 2020, when eye watering levels of stimulus was rolled out at their height of the pandemic.

Bullish exposure continues to fall for the US dollar despite the Fed on the cusp of beginning their rate-hike cycle.

Given the lacklustre bounce on gold alongside a rise in short bets and closure of longs last week, we retain the view that its recent bounce is corrective.

Flash PMI data is released across Asia, Europe and the US. And on the back of last week’s risk-off week then markets may be more sensitive to soft data should it disappoint.

U.S. stock markets closed higher overnight after lawmakers reached an agreement to extend the debt ceiling until December.

As widely expected, at its monthly board meeting this afternoon, the RBA kept monetary policy on hold, including its targets of 10 basis points for the cash rate and the yield on the April 2024 Australian Government bond.

A reprieve for the Australian economy today as Q2 GDP beat expectations as strength in household and government spending outweighed a drop in export volumes and a run down in inventories.

With major economic data releases out of both the US and Australia, FX traders will be keying in on AUD/USD as arguably the most important currency pair to watch this week...

The Reserve Bank of Australia has consistently maintained it will not raise the cash rate away from its 0.10% emergency setting until inflation is sustainably between two and three percent.

In another volatile session in Asia as the spread of delta variant intensifies across the region, the minutes from the RBA's August meeting outlined what might cause the RBA to reconsider its decision to taper its QE program.

The last day of the trading month is upon us, finishing off a busy week that included earnings from “Big Tech” stocks, important US economic updates, and a stomach-churning ~10% fall in Chinese stock indices.

The RBA will be less concerned with inflation and more concerned with monetary stimulus

Six weeks have passed since the Feds hawkish shift at the June FOMC meeting that sent key metal prices spiralling lower. Copper has since recovered all of its lost ground and much more, while gold is trading -3.5% below its pre FOMC levels. In this article, we examine what comes next for gold and copper.