freebo

Interesting piece in todays Australian, basically all of the recent improvements in Australia's unemployment figures have now been atributed to the Rudd stimulous package, it was these figures that largely lead the RBA to rapidly increase interest rates recently, a leading cause of the strength of the AUD.

"THE rapid jobs growth of the past five months has come to a halt, with new figures showing it was driven more by the government's stimulus programs than by underlying strength in the economy, as the Reserve Bank believed.

The RBA has relied on the apparent strength of the labour market to justify its rapid run of interest rate rises."

Does this suggest that the expected future rate hikes may be put on hold? If so this could place a little downward pressure on the AUD as the market will have already priced them in?

Ref: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/poli...-1225839785869

freebo

After a few days respite the pounds getting a kicking again, down 1.2% against the AUD, 1.5% against the USD, and 1% the Euro, now at 1.638AUD.

charlie brown

you can thank a member of the bank of England, bunch of idiots for saying that there was a chance of a w dip, complete Homer Simpson god help us all

77hil

Very stupid of them. Apparantly they said that there was a "chance" of a double dip but that it was not very high. Why bother saying it then!

charlie brown

they have shorted the pound big time if it rises big money to be lostbut there is no reason to think that any of this is planned

koalakim

I nearly fell over when I just checked the pound as yesterday it had been trading at 1.66 (spot rate) yesterday..then 1.63 this morning just because of those comments. They've been talking about double-dip for the UK for ages so why now would this cause the pound to loose 3 cents when we already knew it was a possibility.

There was heaps of good news out of the UK this week and now the pound is back to square one....arghhhh. At this rate we'll be lucky to see 1.70 very soon let alone anything better.

renth

What like the number of people claiming unemployment benefit going down? except the number of people actually "economically inactive" rose i.e. their job seekers allowance ran out and they gave up looking for a job.

The country is to all intents and purposes bankrupt and printing money to pay its debts, the papers and TV news readers might not realise this but it doesn't matter, because the currency traders do.

paulry

Yeah, what a bunch of pillocks

eugene43

Another constructive answer but I did disagree about the the thread they had about you.

paulry

77hil

Nice to see now that they are getting concerned about the inflationary effect of the low pound. A small interest rate rise may be on the cards towards the end of the year.

Amazulu

What do I know but I reckon that the GBP/AUD exchange rate has bottomed, so I just bought some GBP for our trip to Europe in a few months time. GBP500 cash cost me AUD862 at the Flight Centre forex bureau in Perth. I'll probably get some Euros tomorrow.

Looking forward to a cheap European trip.

The Genie

and there is me looking forward to my more expensive return to au

EvannTel

Funnily enough so did I this week, I reckon its run its course. £500 won;t last you long though!

The Genie

i also think that you are right £500 won't last you long, it is not as cheap as you might think, i do giggle when people talk about chocolate at $2.50 and then $.99 cents in woolies, to buy uk £0.60p to£0.65p getting pricey here now, about a 1$ but that can change by the hour.