18.04.201305:08:50UTC+00Australian Dollar reaches 1-month low on growth concern; Bonds advance

Australia’s dollar touched a one- month low as stocks and commodity prices back down, reducing investor appetite for riskier assets.

Australia’s government bonds advanced, sending the 10-year yield to the lowest in more than four months. The Australian and New Zealand dollars held drops versus the yen from yesterday after the International Monetary Fund trim its global growth forecast, citing a lagging recovery in Europe.

“The Aussie and kiwi are hit as stocks and commodity prices declined,” said Takuya Kawabata, an analyst at Gaitame.com Research Institute Ltd., a unit of Japan’s largest currency margin company. “While there’s no sense of urgency from the RBA to cut rates at the moment, a big drop in consumer prices or lackluster global growth could boost easing expectations.”

Australia’s dollar inched up at $1.0306 as of 12:34 p.m. in Sydney from $1.0297 yesterday, after earlier hitting $1.0269, the bottom state since March 12. The so-called Aussie exchanged at 101.09 yen from 101.03 yen.

The New Zealand dollar purchased 84.43 U.S. cents from 84.41 yesterday, when it went down 0.6 percent. The currency was at 82.80 yen.

Three-year yields in Australia bumped 2.68 percent, the weakest since Jan. 24. Ten-year yields fell as much as nine basis points, or 0.09 percentage point, to 3.17 percent, a five-month low.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) gave up 0.5 percent, trailing a 1.3 percent decrease in MSCI World Index (MXWO) yesterday. Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB index of raw materials miss 0.8 percent yesterday.

Global Progress

The Washington-based IMF trimmed its global growth forecast this week to 3.3 percent for 2013 from the January estimate of 3.5 percent. It lowered China’s growth projection to 8 percent from 8.2 percent. China is the biggest trading partner for both Australia and New Zealand.

China’s new home prices rose in all but two major cities, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement today.

In Australia, the central bank reiterated in the minutes released this week of its April 2 meeting that the Australian dollar “remained high” and the inflation outlook gives it room to cut borrowing costs.

RBA Policy

Australia’s consumer prices probably rose 2.8 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg before the Bureau of Statistics releases the data on April 24.

In March, the Reserve Bank of Australia sold A$71 million ($73 million) more in local currency than it bought through the so-called other outright transaction category and sold a net A$577 million in the spot market.

Interest-rate swaps data compiled by Bloomberg show traders see a 40 percent chance the RBA will lower its benchmark to record 2.75 percent at the next meeting on May 7, the highest since March 11, and compared with 22 percent probability indicated a week ago.

In New Zealand, job advertisements rose for a second month in March. The number of postings in newspapers and the Internet increased 0.7 percent last month from a revised 1.8 percent in February, ANZ Bank New Zealand Ltd. said in Wellington today.

New Zealand’s two-year swap rate, a fixed payment made to receive a floating rate, fell three basis points to 2.84 percent. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand will meet on April 24.