RBA wants lower Australian dollar

Andrew Masters FIBO Group

The Australian dollar continues to push towards the US80c mark in today’s trading session, brushing off remarks by the Reserve Bank of Australia in order to try and talk the currency down.

At 10.36am (GMT) the Aussie dollar was trading at US79.57c up from US79.11c at close of trading on Friday.

In a speech on Friday, deputy RBA governor Guy Debelle noted that now was not the time to raise interest rates in Australia which immedieately caused a selloff in the Aussie dollar as most had predicted a rate hike in the foreseeable future

"Debelle burst the Aussie dollar bulls' balloon, leaning heavy against the markets inference of the neutral nominal rate comment in an attempt to jawbone the currency lower," OANDA trader Stephen Innes said.

With the Australian dollar now sitting at a 2 year high against its US counterpart, many believe that the chances of a rate hike this year have disappeared and the earliest time to expect one is in the second half of next year but is not guaranteed.

"Our view on monetary policy remains unchanged and we don't yet see a case for rate rises sooner than late 2018," noted Commonwealth Bank's economic research team

"To bring rate rises on the table sooner than that we would need to see labour market slack eroded further, in the form of declining unemployment and underemployment rates, and wages growth lift." they added.

It seems for the moment the Australian dollar has reached a top around US80c and the chances of a pullback seem to outweigh the possibility of the currency travelling much higher.

Author

Andrew Masters

FIBO Group

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