AUD/USD hits lowest in 19-months
Further signs that China’s economy may be slowing helped push the Australian dollar to its lowest level since January 2017, with the antipodean currency poised for its fifth consecutive daily loss. The Aussie is trading about 7.4% lower versus the US dollar since the beginning of the year. It could not gain any traction despite another up day for the Turkish lira, which rose as much as 5.8%.
Aussie was probably more affected by local and China data rather than the sentiment from emerging currencies. Fixed asset investment rose 5.5% y/y from January to July in China, less than the 6.0% forecast and the smallest increase since data began in early 2008.
Elsewhere, in line with USD/TRY’s movements, USD/MXN rose 0.7% while USD/SGD, a good barometer of the dollar’s direction, rose 0.1% to 1.3800, its highest level in just over a year.
Australia wages growth hits forecast
Wages growth in Australia remains slow, with the county’s wage price index rising 0.6% q/q in Q2, a slight pickup from the 0.5% rate in Q1 though has consistently held in the 0.4% to 0.6% range for the past four years. Slow wages growth (combined with high household debt) has been cited by the RBA as a reason for keeping interest rates at record lows. Consumer confidence, as measured by the Westpac index was down 2.3% in August after registering and improvement of 3.9% the previous month.
UK inflation seen ticking higher
UK producer and consumer prices are on tap today together with DCLG’s reading of house prices in July. Consumer prices are expected to rise 2.5% y/y, according to the latest survey of economists, as the Bank of England citied taming consistently high inflation as one of the reasons for hiking rates earlier this month. An above-forecast reading today will no doubt stir the hawks into talking about the next BOE hike, which could help the Pound halt a 10-day losing streak which has seen it drop to a 14-month low earlier today.
The US session features US retail sales, the industrial production/capacity utilization combo and business inventories. Closing the session we see net inflows/outflows of financial resources in the US with the monthly TIC flows data.
