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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Dollar under pressure as are Euro and Aussie


On Thursday, the Fed will release minutes of its September 13th meeting, when it announced that it will purchase $40 billion of mortgage bonds a month. On Monday, Bernanke said that the central bank will continue with record stimulus even after economic expansion gains strength.

Bernanke went on to say that the Fed expects that the U.S. economy will continue to grow, and that "Our concern is not really a recession. Our concern is that growth will continue but at a pace that's insufficient to put people back to work".

A report is due out on Wednesday from ADP Employer Services, that will likely show that U.S. companies have hired 140,000 workers in the month of September, compared to 201,000 in August. The government is set to release its monthly payrolls report on Friday, October 5th, a day after weekly jobless data is due.

I foresee the Dollar's being kept relatively weak. On the one hand, global economic concerns may assist its strength though, on the other, continued printing by the Fed will counteract that and keep it weak. As a result we could expect fluctuations in its strength over the short to medium term.

Earlier today, the Dollar touched $1.2912 per Euro, and was down at 78.09 Yen from 77.99. The Yen lost 0.3% to 100.85 per Euro.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has cut its benchmark interest rate to the lowest level since 2009.

A global slowdown has weakened commodity prices which have assisted in driving 21 years of growth without a recession. The RBA had lowered the overnight cash-rate target by a quarter percentage point to 3.25%. With a negative reaction in the markets to the RBA's decision, I think it likely as some analysts predict, that we'll see the Aussie decline to $1.0250 over the next few days.

The Australian Dollar Earlier traded at $1.0308.

The Euro saw limited gains ahead of a meeting of the European Central Bank on Thursday and of data, due out on Wednesday, which is forecast to show that retail sales in the Euro bloc have declined for a second month.

Figures released yesterday had shown that unemployment in the Euro area has climbed to a record 11.4% in August.

Spain is expected to press on with its analysis of whether to seek a bailout and is studying an ECB bond-buying proposal. Should Spain decide to ask for a bailout, economists predict that this will be a positive factor for the Euro.

I don't expect that any news out of Europe will get better in the short term, as the debt crisis is far from over and this will push the Euro-Dollar lower in the medium term.

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