Sinduja Venkat on Google +
Good morning and welcome to today’s foreign exchange market commentary on Monday, the 6th of May.
Here are MyCurrencyTransfer.com’s top 5 currency highlights:
- AUD drops owing to weak Aussie retail figures
- USD soars; hiring is on the rise once again
- USD/JPY edges closer to 100 yen barrier
- Euro remains resilient despite rate cut decision
- CAD makes gains backed by USD rally
CURRENCY RATES OVERVIEW
GBP/EURO – 1.1881
GBP/USD – 1.5563
GBP/CHF – 1.4590
GBP/CAD – 1.5690
GBP/AUD – 1.5157
GBP/ZAR – 13.9233
GBP/JPY – 154.6483
GBP/HKD – 12.0770
GBP/NZD – 1.8233
GBP/SEK – 10.1447
Mid-market rates as of 2013-05-06 07:34 UTC
Key releases in the next 24 hours that may affect currency date:
Australia: AUD AiG Performance of Construction Index (APR)
Europe: EUR German Purchasing Manager Index Services (APR F), EUR Euro-Zone Purchasing Manager Index Services (APR F), EUR Euro-Zone Purchasing Manager Index Composite (APR F), EUR Euro-Zone Sentix Investor Confidence (MAY), EUR Euro-Zone Retail Sales (YoY) (MAR)
United Kingdom: No Data
New Zealand: NZD Average Hourly Earnings (QoQ) (1Q)
United States of America: No Data
China: No Data
Canada: CAD Building Permits (MoM) (MAR), CAD Ivey Purchasing Managers Index s.a. (APR)
AUD drops owing to weak Aussie retail figures
An unexpected turn of events saw the release of weak retail sales data from Australia for the month of March which led to renewed speculation of a rate cut being announced on May 7. This led to the AUD to drop against it peers on Monday’s Asian trading session. Retail sales in Australia dropped by 0.4 % in March while the expected drop was forecasted to be around 0.1 %, as indicated by Australia’s Bureau of Statistics.
The slowdown in retail activity combined with lower job ads figures in Australia and New Zealand together point out to a decline in spending which increased downward pressure on prices. Topping this off with the recent slowdown in the Chinese manufacturing sector, market participants expect that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has several reasons to cut rates. The expectation is that there will be a rate cut by up to 25 bps today.
USD soars; hiring is on the rise once again
According to Friday’s US Labor non-farm payrolls (NFP) report release, hiring is up once again and the USD is rising on the back of this newfound confidence. USD rose against all its peers after the NFP report beat market expectations. NFP increased to 165,000 in April as the rate of unemployment fell to 7.5%. In the private sector growth in number of jobs was strong at 138000, up from the previous months 88,000; average wage per hour also increased by 0.2% in April.
USD/JPY edges closer to 100 yen barrier
USD edged higher against its Asian peers including the Japanese Yen in today’s Asian session owing to the release of the U.S. labor report for April on Friday last week. That data, that new private sector jobs improved while the unemployment rate fell, helped to alleviate some concerns about the U.S. economic health and outlook.
The USD/JPY pair has stalled at 99.95 Yen last month representing a 4 year high. As the USD rises against the Yen the much awaited 100.00 level by market participants is likely to be achieved soon. USD’s improved outlook as well as a go ahead from Bank of Japan to devalue the Yen further will expedite the currency pair to reach the 100.00 level.
Euro remains resilient despite rate cut decision
Euro remained resilient on Friday against USD despite having to face key decisions including ECB’s interest rate cuts as well as the strong US labor data. Some key data releases in the next 24 hours including EUR German Purchasing Manager Index Services for April, Euro-Zone Purchasing Manager Index Services for April and Eurozone Retail Sales for March should however affect the single currency.
CAD makes gains backed by USD rally
Canadian Dollar gained on the USD as well as its other peers as North American currency markets were fired up by strong nonfarm payroll data from as indicated by a US labour market report. Hiring was shown to have risen more than expected in April. CAD closed the week 0.9 percent stronger against the USD thanks to strong domestic growth data in addition to the indications released by the US jobs data on Friday.
Have a great day!
