Market Update – 16th November 2017 – Markets Getting Jittery With Equities & Commodities Selling Off

The Aussie dollars decline has continued overnight, with lower commodities prices and jitters in international stocks providing the impetus for a tonne of risk aversion almost across the board. Gold as a safe haven has however performed quite well as a result of the flight to safety, while Bitcoin appears to be morphing into a kind of safe haven in its own respect with money flowing out of equities and seemingly into Bitcoin.

Poor economic data started yesterday with Westpac Consumer Sentiment turning negative and was followed closely by more local data in the Wage Price Index which came in below expectations at 0.5% for the quarter vs. the anticipated 0.7%. We also saw some sluggish retail sales and consumer prices out of the U.S overnight which has caused markets to reassess the health of the global economy.

I’ve talked a bit about the U.S stock market over the past few months, and it certainly appears we may be seeing the first signs of a correction for U.S stocks, however of course trying to predict what markets will do is near impossible, so tread with some caution. The same can be said with the Aussie dollar which appears to be under quite a bit of selling pressure after a very good run which saw us move above 0.8000 vs. the Greenback.

AUD EXCHANGE RATES:

AUD/USD – 0.7590

AUD/GBP – 0.5763

AUD/EUR – 0.6436

AUD/NZD – 1.1041

AUD/JPY – 85.641

COMMODITIES: 

Gold – A$1685/oz

Silver –  A$22.38/oz

WTI – US$55.42/barrel

DATA RELEASES TODAY:

AUD – Employment at 11.30am

GBP – Retail Sales at 8.30pm