AUDUSD: Aussie craters after weak labor market data

Peter Bukov Axiory Global Ltd.

The Australian dollar was the weakest currency out of majors on Thursday, and the AUDUSD pair was down 1% in the afternoon, trading at around 0.7080.

During the Asian session, Australian labor market data came out better than expected, although still worrisome. The employment change for September dropped to -29,500 (from 111,000 previously), so the Australian economy lost 29,500 jobs in September. 20k of those were full-time. The unemployment rate worsened to 6.9% from 6.8% previously. The Australian dollar was down 50 pips, or 0.65%, after the numbers.

Moreover, Chinese CPI fell notably to 1.7% year-on-year, down from 2.4% previously. The PPI also worsened to -2.1%. Both data are for September and suggest the Chinese central bank might lose monetary policy further.

Later in the day, data showed that 898,000 Americans filed for first-time jobless claims last week, well above the previous week's 845,000 (and much worse than the 825,000 expected). This is the biggest rise in claims in 8 weeks.

It looks like the Aussie will test the September lows near 0.70. If this level is broken to the upside, the medium-term trend could change to bearish, targeting 0.6950 in the initial reaction.

Author

Peter Bukov

Axiory Global Ltd.

Peter Bukov is one of Axiory’s leading analysts. He has a master’s degree in Corporate Finance and is highly sought after as a teacher of Forex trading at various universities in Slovakia.

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