Forexpros – The Australian dollar slumped to a one-week low against its U.S. counterpart on Monday, as demand for higher yielding assets was hit by concerns over a slowdown in global growth after Friday’s dismal U.S. employment data.
AUD/USD hit 1.0563 during late Asian trade, the pair’s lowest since August 26; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.0564, shedding 0.74%.
The pair was likely to find support at 1.0416, the low of August 26 and resistance at 1.0732, last Friday’s high.
On Friday, U.S. data showed that the economy added no new jobs in August for the first time in almost a year. Economists had expected non-farm payrolls to rise by 74,000 in August. The jobless rate remained unchanged at 9.1%.
The data added to expectations that the Federal Reserve will embark on a third round of monetary stimulus, to shore up faltering U.S. growth.
Meanwhile, concerns that the sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone is deepening weighed on market sentiment.
Elsewhere, official data earlier showed that Australian company profits rose sharply in the second quarter, due to the country’s mining boom.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics said companies’ gross operating profits rose 6.7% to a seasonally adjusted AUD67.54 billion in the second quarter. Mining firms led the surge with profits climbing 15.2% to AUD24.56 billion.
The Aussie was also sharply lower against the yen, with AUD/JPY falling 0.71% to hit 81.17.
Also Monday, industry data showed that Australia’s service sector expanded in August, on the back of strength in the financial, insurance and communications industries.
The Performance of Services Index by the Australian Industry Group and the Commonwealth Bank rose 3.3 points to 52.1 last month.
Forexpros
