US Dollar Slumps with Domestic Retail Sales Shortfall, ?Kiwi? Rises on RBNZ Hawkishness

Published: 14 Oct at 5 PM Tags: Euro, Dollar, Pound Sterling, America, UK, Eurozone, Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, Canadian Dollar, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, China,

Pound Sterling
The outlook of the Pound was somewhat improved today thanks to the release of some encouraging UK employment data. Although the September Claimant Count failed to fall as forecast, instead rising by 4,600, this was outweighed by an unexpected decrease on the ILO Unemployment Rate in the three months to August. Clocking in at 5.4% this brought domestic unemployment to its lowest level in seven years, a strong economic signal as Average Weekly Earnings continued to grow, albeit at a slightly slowed pace.

Euro
Prospects were not so strong for the common currency on Wednesday, in spite of an early surge in the demand thanks to the latest signs of economic weakness from China. This was due to a poor showing on the Eurozone’s August Industrial Production reading, which defied expectations for a minor uptick of 1.8% to instead slump to 0.9%. Signalling that the domestic economy remains in a fragile state of recovery, this naturally led to further speculation of monetary loosening measures to come from the European Central Bank (ECB).

US Dollar
Sentiment towards the ‘Greenback’ soured significantly this afternoon after the US Advance Retail Sales figure for September fell short of forecast at 0.1% and the previous month’s figure was also revised down to 0%. Indicating that the world’s largest economy remains less than robust and further discouraging talk of a 2015 interest rate hike from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), this set the US Dollar on a strong downtrend across the board.

Australian Dollar
The ‘Aussie’ started the day on a weak footing thanks to the Chinese Consumer Price Index revealing that domestic inflation rose at its slowest rate since 2009, however, it was ultimately not held down for long. Likely this was influenced by the dovishness of the latest US data, with the resultant reassurance that the Fed would likely not be moving to increase interest rates before the end of the year.

New Zealand Dollar
While also impacted by the softness of the day’s Chinese data the ‘Kiwi’ went on to post strong gains due to rather hawkish comments from Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) Governor Graeme Wheeler. Indicating that the central bank would not be keen to slash interest rates again at their next meeting Wheeler prompted the South Pacific currency to strengthen substantially, particularly against its antipodean neighbour.

Canadian Dollar
Trade has been relatively weak for the ‘Loonie’ today, with oil prices continuing to retreat as Brent crude fell back to $48.95 per barrel. Declining odds of a 2015 Fed interest rate hike have ultimately failed to particularly boost demand for the Canadian Dollar, with the ‘Loonie’ remaining on a persistent downtrend against most of the majors.
As of Wednesday, 14th October 2015, the Pound Sterling currency rates mentioned within this news item were as follows:

GBP EUR exchange rate was 1.3486, GBP USD exchange rate was 1.5474, GBP AUD exchange rate was 2.119, GBP NZD exchange rate was 2.2762, GBP CAD exchange rate was 2.0006, and GBP CNY exchange rate was 9.8222.

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