AUD/USD turns red on subdued Australian Retail Sales
- AUD/USD drops on weak Aussie retail sales data.
- Australia's retail sales growth slowed to 0.2% in September, as expected.
- The losses could be short-lived as RBA is unlikely to cut rates before the year's end.
The bid tone around the Australian Dollar weakened, leading to a drop in the AUD/USD pair after the official data showed the Australian consumer spending growth slowed in October.
Australia's consumer spending, as represented by Retail Sales rose 0.2% month-on-month in September following August's 0.4% rise, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported at 00:30 GMT. The data was tipped to show the retail sales growth slowed to 0.2%.
The AUD/USD pair, which recovered from 0.6907 to 0.6917 ahead of the retail sales, fell back to 0.6904 following the release of the key data.
The drop, however, could be short-lived, possibly because the Reserve Bank of Australia is unlikely to feel pressured to cut rates next month, as the data released last week showed the economy added 26,200 full-time jobs in September and the jobless rate fell to 5.2%, from a one-year peak of 5.3%, the first drop since February when it got as low as 4.9%.
Further, the TD Securities Inflation data released at 00:00 GMT also matched estimates by printing at 1.5% year-on-year and 0.1% month-on-month. Further, the US-China trade optimism could also put a bid under the AUD during the day ahead. As of writing, the pair is trading at session lows near 0.6904.
Technical levels
Author
Omkar Godbole
FXStreet Contributor
Omkar Godbole, editor and analyst, joined FXStreet after four years as a research analyst at several Indian brokerage companies.
