Market Update – 7th November 2018 – Vote Counting Begins In U.S Mid-Terms, AUD Up With Equities

The Aussie Dollar advanced with U.S equities overnight while Gold and Oil retreated. In the U.S, election officials will begin to tally votes this morning in what could be the mostly hotly contested and biggest ever voter turnout to U.S mid-term elections in history. The vote is seen as a referendum on Trump’s presidency so far and many pundits think the Democrats will take back the House, while the Senate will be far harder to retake given the low number of Republican held seats up for re-election.

Yesterday we saw the RBA not-surprisingly hold interest rates at 1.5%, but comments and forecasts suggest the next move will be higher sometime in late 2019-early 2020. The RBA noted “forecasts for economic growth in 2018 and 2019 have been revised up a little” while “business conditions are positive and non-mining business investment is expected to increase.”

All eyes remain on the U.S mid terms today, with vote counting to continue through the day – we should have an idea of winners by around lunchtime.

AUD EXCHANGE RATES:

AUD/USD – 0.7194

AUD/GBP – 0.5484

AUD/EUR – 0.6298

AUD/NZD – 1.0802

AUD/JPY – 81.668

USD/BTC – $6,393

OTHER MARKETS: 

All Ords (XAO) – 5,958

Gold – A$1,697/oz

Silver –  A$20.12/oz

WTI – US$62.28/barrel

DATA RELEASES TODAY:

ALL – U.S Mid-Term Elections tonight and through tomorrow