The Australian dollar is lower after receiving some weak economic indicators. The Westpac Consumer Sentiment dropped by 7%, significantly worse than 5.1% that was expected.
AUD/USD has settled in a range that centers around 0.98. The pair has trade between 0.9750 and 0.9840 of late, climbing above the floor of 0.97 seen earlier.
Before the news, the Australian dollar enjoyed the general weakness of the USD following speeches from FOMC members.
In addition to the weak consumer sentiment, an Australian government report saw investment in major energy and resources peak. The Australian BREE agency published a report, in which it saw committed capital expenditure slide to $A256 by the end of the year, and a bigger drop to 70 billion in 2017.
The report also looks at the past and sees that around $A150 billion in projects within this sector have either been cancelled or postponed last year. This isn’t good news for the Aussie in the long run.
This report joins previous talk about “the end of the mining boom†in Australia. The weaker Australian dollar has a potential to help other parts of the economy, which haven’t grown as fast as the mining sector in recent years.
For more, see the AUD/USD forecast, and here is a live chart of A$/USD:
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The central bank in Japan didn’t break any ground in its recent rate decision. The big event of the day is testimony of US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, that will begin testifying at 14:00 GMT.
