Market Update – 2nd October 2017 – AUD Flat Following Quiet Weekend, Holidays In China All Week

AUD is little changed following a quiet weekend without any new data or global macro news. AUD is holding above 0.78 vs. the Greenback and while we’ve maintained the 0.66’s and 0.58’s vs. the EURO and GBP respectively. The first week of the month is always pretty busy for the Aussie dollar with a raft of economic data announcements which includes the latest RBA rate announcement.

First up we see the latest from the RBA tomorrow in the cash rate decision, however again the market is not anticipating any move on rates just yet. Having said that, the rhetoric has been slowly picking up that the next move will be higher rates, but exactly when remains an unknown. The RBA may shed light on when they anticipate needing to raise rates, so we’ll certainly be watching closely for any indications.

Thursday sees the release of retail sales and trade balance figures with retail sales anticipated to come in around 0.3%, while the trade balance is expected to start growing again thanks to a boost in commodities prices.

Finally a quick note – the Chinese bankers are at their beach houses all week in observance of their National Holiday and hence no banks are open; any payments to China will be delayed until next week as a result.

AUD EXCHANGE RATES:

AUD/USD – 0.7832

AUD/GBP – 0.5851

AUD/EUR – 0.6635

AUD/NZD – 1.0870

AUD/JPY – 88.118

COMMODITIES: 

Gold – A$1633/oz

Silver –  A$21.25/oz

WTI – US$51.72/barrel

DATA RELEASES TODAY:

AUD & CNY – Bank Holidays today in Australia and China

GBP – Manufacturing PMI at 6.30pm

USD – ISM Manufacturing PMI at midnight