By: Barbara Zigah
The Australian unemployment report beat analyst’s forecasts last month, with the jobless rate falling .1% to 5.8%, raising investor expectations that another interest rate hike from the current 3.75% will be forthcoming. The next meeting of the Australian Reserve Bank will be in February 2010, and most economists predict that a rate hike will likely occur then. In New Zealand, the Reserve Bank issued a statement that the administration may withdraw their economic stimulus policy beginning in mid-2010 instead of the latter part of next year, as was previously pledged. These two factors helped to spur the New Zealand and Australian Dollars in Asian trading. As reported at 4:17 p.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the Aussie was trading against the U.S. Dollar at $0.9128, an increase of .5%, while the New Zealand Dollar traded against the greenback at $0.7240, an increase of .6%.
The Australian unemployment report beat analyst’s forecasts last month, with the jobless rate falling .1% to 5.8%, raising investor expectations that another interest rate hike from the current 3.75% will be forthcoming. The next meeting of the Australian Reserve Bank will be in February 2010, and most economists predict that a rate hike will likely occur then. In New Zealand, the Reserve Bank issued a statement that the administration may withdraw their economic stimulus policy beginning in mid-2010 instead of the latter part of next year, as was previously pledged. These two factors helped to spur the New Zealand and Australian Dollars in Asian trading. As reported at 4:17 p.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the Aussie was trading against the U.S. Dollar at $0.9128, an increase of .5%, while the New Zealand Dollar traded against the greenback at $0.7240, an increase of .6%.
The single currency Euro continues to struggle, undercut by persisting worries over sovereign debt within the Euro-zone; yesterday, Standard & Poor reduced the credit outlook of Spain to negative. The Euro held steady versus the Yen, trading at 129.40 Yen and against the U.S. Dollar, remained flat at $1.4726.