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Australia’s dollar back down against its major counterparts after data displayed the nation’s jobless rate surged to a three-year high, fanning assumption the Reserve Bank will cut borrowing costs to help development.
The yield on Australia’s benchmark three-year note decline for the first time in three days. The New Zealand dollar touched a 1 1/2-year high after a report displayed the nation’s manufacturing industry extended last month.
“We’ll probably see weakness on the crosses for the next couple of days, as the view on a recovery in the Australian labor market remains challenged, and also the RBA retains its easing bias,” said Andrew Salter, a foreign-exchange strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ), referring to Australia’s dollar against its peers.
The Aussie dollar gave up 0.3 percent to $1.0511 as of 12:12 p.m. in Sydney. It dropped 0.4 percent to NZ$1.2247 after hitting NZ$1.2233, the worst since Feb. 20. The New Zealand dollar, also called as kiwi, approached 85.98 U.S. cents, the greatest since August 2011, before trading at 85.82, 0.1 percent stronger than the close yesterday.
Australia’s three-year note yield decline two basis points, or 0.02 percentage point, to 2.81 percent. It skid to 2.75 percent on April 8, a level unseen since March 5.
The nation’s unemployment rate boost to 5.6 percent last month, the greatest since 2009, from 5.4 percent in February, the statistics bureau said in Sydney today. The number of people employed dropped by 36,100, compared with the 7,500 decline estimated by economists in a Bloomberg News survey.
New Zealand’s Performance of Manufacturing Index was 53.4 in March, staying above the 50 level which shows expansion for a sixth month, Bank of New Zealand and Business New Zealand reported.
