BLBG:Aussie Dollar Halts Gain After Sales, Job Vacancies Drop
Australia’s dollar snapped a three- day gain after reports showed the South Pacific nation’s retail sales unexpectedly declined and job vacancies fell.
The nation’s bonds advanced amid speculation the central bank will cut interest rates. New Zealand’s dollar rose versus the so-called Aussie after data showed building approvals for detached houses surged in the smaller nation to the highest in more than two years.
“The Aussie is struggling to rise,” said Satoshi Okagawa, a senior global markets analyst in Singapore at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., a unit of Japan’s second-biggest financial group by market value. “I can’t see an immediate pickup in corporate confidence or retail sales.”
The Aussie slid 0.1 percent to $1.0495 as of 3:13 p.m. in Sydney after rising 0.4 percent in the past three days through yesterday to $1.0504. New Zealand’s currency climbed 0.3 percent to NZ$1.2521 per Australian dollar and rose 0.2 percent to 83.81 U.S. cents.
Australian retail sales fell 0.1 percent in November from the prior month, the Bureau of Statistics said today, while economists estimated a 0.3 percent increase. Job vacancies dropped 6.9 percent the same month, a separate report showed.
The yield on Australia’s three-year note slid three basis points to 2.81 percent. New Zealand’s two-year swap rate was little changed at 2.75 percent.
Traders see a 60 percent likelihood that the Reserve Bank of Australia will cut its benchmark rate to 2.75 percent or lower by March, according to overnight index swaps data compiled by Bloomberg. The overnight cash target currently stands at 3 percent.
N.Z. Dollar
Permits in New Zealand for dwellings excluding apartments rose 4.6 percent in November to 1,382, the most since May 2010, the country’s statistics office said.
“There seem to be higher expectations for New Zealand than Australia in terms of the resilience of their economies,” said Takuya Kawabata, an analyst at Gaitame.com Research Institute Ltd. in Tokyo, a unit of Japan’s largest currency margin company.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) of shares gained 0.4 percent, bolstering demand for higher-yielding assets.
Australia’s dollar added 0.4 percent to 91.76 yen, while its New Zealand counterpart jumped 0.6 percent to 73.29 yen.
The yen fell versus all of its major counterparts on expectations the Bank of Japan (8301) will accede to government pressure to expand monetary easing that tends to weaken the currency.
To contact the reporter on this story: Masaki Kondo in Singapore at mkondo3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rocky Swift at rswift5@bloomberg.net
