Market Update – 20th July 2018 – Strong AU Employment Gives AUD Short Lived Spike

Strong employment numbers yesterday initially boosted the AUD however the gains were short lived with risk aversion creeping back into markets in the afternoon and through the evening. Putting aside the short lived gains, the data was positive and should be noted as 50K new jobs were created in the month of June – this marked the best month since December of last year when jobs numbers grew by nearly 62K. So while areas like housing and retail continue to battle, jobs growth has been reasonably robust which bodes well for the Aussie economy in the long run.

In other news, commodities moved lower after a good run yesterday while U.K retail sales declined and European and U.S equities finished the overnight session mostly lower.  Trump is still front page news everywhere as he continues to rock the modus operandi of the global economy and trade, but like many I’ll be hoping the U.S Democratic party can take a large number of seats in the upcoming mid-term elections in November.

AUD EXCHANGE RATES:

AUD/USD – 0.7337

AUD/GBP – 0.5632

AUD/EUR – 0.6297

AUD/NZD – 1.0884

AUD/JPY – 82.55

USD/BTC – $7,442

OTHER MARKETS: 

All Ords (XAO) – 6,355

Gold – A$1,662/oz

Silver –  A$20.82/oz

WTI – US$67.51/barrel

DATA RELEASES TODAY:

None