AUD: Australian Dollar moderately goes upward

At the Forex currency market the Australian Dollar rate goes up moderately on Thursday; however positions remained almost the same, as players in the global financial markets are waiting for decisions of the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, as well as completion of Greek talks.

Forex forecast: MACD indicator for the pair AUD/USD is going up in the positive area, while volumes are high, and is giving a buy signal. Stochastic Oscillator remains in the overbought zone and is giving a similar signal.

Forex recommendations: in case of breakdown at the level of 1.0810, the pair will go to 1.0830 and 1.0850. The pair looks rather overbought.

There was no new information on Australian economy today; nevertheless the AUD is full of strength even without this driver.

At the regular meeting this week, the Reserve Bank of Australia decided to keep interest rate at the level of 4.25% per annum, while market predicted downward revision of the index by 25 basis points.

According to comments made by RBA, domestic economy is stable and resists external negative pressure from Europe quite well. The head of RBA Mr. Stevens believes that situation in the European economy has slightly improved since December, although sentiments remain very pessimistic. It is logical that the regulator does not abandon possibility of lowering the rate: Stevens noted that the cost of lending can be revised downward if conditions require so.

Meanwhile, Australian monetary politician Mr.Swan believes that currently, strong rate of the Australian Dollar represents real threat to local exporters and their incomes. Note that the day before yesterday the rate of the pair AUD/USD has reached the highs of August 2011.

Retail sales fell by 0.1% m/m in December against the forecast of 0.2%. According to statistics released earlier, activity index in the manufacturing sector rose by 1.4% in January, up to 51.6points, as per AI GROUP estimates. Aggregate activity index Aig in the service sector increased to 51.9 points in January (+2.9 points) against growth of 1.3points a month earlier. The index has been growing for the third month in a row, while major growth in activity is related to households. Nevertheless, AiG noted in the comments that revival in the index took place only in three out of nine components of the index.

Inflation in the country showed zero growth in Q4 against the forecast of growth of 0.4% on quarterly basis. Consumer sentiment index Westpac-MI fell to 94.7 points, -8.3% m/m in December against the value of 103.4 points in November.

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