Australian dollar moves wildly

Financial and commodity markets analytics

The Australian dollar is holding steady today after last Friday’s wild swings on the back of mixed data from across the globe.

At 9.10am (GMT) the Aussie dollar was trading at US75.99c after trading as high as US76.76c in last Friday’s trade.

China’s second quarter GDP data hit the market at 6.7 percent which was above analysts’ estimates for a figure of 6.6 percent.

The retail sales figure also beat expectations coming in at 10.6 percent against analysts’ expectations for a figure of 10 percent, while industrial production figures also jumped 6.2 percent against an expected figure of 5.9 percent.

 The strong data from the world’s second largest economy boosted the Australian dollar as expectations of an imminent rate cut from the reserve Bank of Australia subsided.

The gains however were short lived as the American session opened up with retail sales numbers from the US coming in at 0.7 percent, almost double the expected figure of 0.4 percent, and fueled expectation of a rate rise from the US Federal Reserve next month.

“The market is pricing in a greater probability of a Fed rate hike in 2016,” said Stephen Innes, senior trader at OANDA Asia Pacific.

“To be exact, US interest rate futures are pricing in a 40 percent chance of a 25 point hike in December. The accelerator has been an intense round of US data on the heels of strong June employment figures.” He added.