Currencies largely unchanged ahead of Fed Decision
|AUD - Australian Dollar
Currencies were little changed on Monday as US equities challenged record highs ahead of Wednesday’s monetary policy decision from the Federal Reserve. Although the US Dollar index was flat on the day, the AUD was able to consolidate above 0.7700 and the NZD traded in a tight band between 0.7125 and 0.7153. Trading in the AUD/NZD cross was also tight, ranging between 1.0790 and 1.0810.
We’re set for a busy day today on the data front with a number of potentially market moving releases due. We can expect the RBA to publish the minutes from its board meeting in June with markets hoping for hints regarding the direction of policy settings to be decided at next month’s meeting. Across the pond we have some housing data due which will be watched closely given the governments recent intervention in this sector. We will also get May’s food price index and GDT dairy auction. Finally, we will get UK unemployment data and a raft of other releases out of the USA, most notably retail sales data for May.
Key Movers
As we touched on above, currencies were largely contained on Monday with the EUR rising slightly from 1.2094 to 1.2131, the AUD and NZD traded in tight bands and the Japanese Yen fell slightly, allowing USD/JPY to break through 110 again. The impetus for the higher EUR was a better than expected industrial production report out of the Eurozone which pointed to a broadening of the economic recovery, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
In commodities, crude oil futures reached their highest level since May 2019. Copper and Iron Ore both rose 0.3% and 1.1% respectively with gold falling 0.9% throughout trade.
Expected Ranges
AUD/USD: 0.7690 - 0.7760 ▼
AUD/EUR: 0.6330 - 0.6385 ▼
GBP/AUD: 1.8200– 1.8350 ▲
AUD/NZD: 1.0740 - 1.0850 ▲
AUD/CAD: 0.9320 - 0.9400 ▼
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