US Dollar cheaper again

The US Dollar fell in trading yesterday, giving us better rates for sending money to the USA, as worse than expected manufacturing figures helped keep interest rate rise expectations a little lower. The US Dollar is currently nearly 7% cheaper than as recently as April, although we might expect this trend to reverse in the coming weeks if US interest rate rises are seen as likely to be heading up before those in the UK or elsewhere. In fact the Dollar may be more volatile than many currencies in the coming days and weeks, with non-farm payrolls (the main monthly measure of the US jobs market), factory orders and jobless claims all released this week to add to the ongoing interest rate speculation.

Don’t forget that for pegged currencies in the middle east such as the UAE Dirham, which trades at almost exactly 3.6725 times the US Dollar exchange rate, are similarly affected.

Australian Dollar rates take a hit

The Australian Dollar, which has been trading at multi-year highs in recent weeks, gained significant strength overnight as the Reserve Bank of Australia kept interest rates held at 2% and released an accompanying statement saying that their policy would remain ‘accommodative’ but appeared to rule out cutting rates any further. This along with Governor Glenn Stevens’ more upbeat comments, sent the AUD soaring in value, gaining over 1% against the Pound overnight. This means that while rates for buying Australian Dollars are still exceptionally good, we may have seen something of a turnaround, so if you are moving down under or buying goods from Australia, now could be a very good time to consider fixing your exchange rate.

Other news today

There are not too many major economic releases through the rest of today, with New Zealand unemployment tonight (23.45 UK time) and Eurozone producer inflation this morning. In the absence of much news or data yesterday the Euro rate remained stable compared to recent volatility, but that could be set to change tomorrow morning with a raft of European services sector figures and overall Eurozone retail sales, before focus returns to the UK on Thursday and the Bank of England’s own interest rate decision and accompanying minutes and speech.