Investing.com - The Australian dollar slipped again against its U.S. rival during Friday’s Asian session on news some professional traders just cannot get enough of shorting the Aussie.
In Asian trading Friday, AUD/USD tumbled 0.57% to 0.9549. The pair was likely to find support at 0.9390, the low of October 4, 2011 and resistance at 0.9547, the session high.
On Thursday, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager and the world’s biggest issuer of exchange traded funds, said there are "prominent" U.S. hedge funds that are lining up to short the Australian dollar. A spate of recent, weak economic data makes that trade all the more alluring.
On Thursday, official data showed that Australia's trade surplus narrowed far more-than-expected in April, falling to AUD0.03 billion from a surplus of AUD0.56 billion the previous month.
Analysts had expected the trade surplus to narrow to 0.22 billion in April.
The data came after a report on Wednesday showed that Australia's GDP rose 2.5% in the first quarter from a year earlier, expanding at the slowest annual pace in nearly two years.
Those data points came after the Reserve Bank of Australia earlier this week left interest rates unchanged at 2.75%. However, a growing chorus of global banks expect RBA to continue cutting rates later this year as a way of fighting slowing growth in the world’s 12th-largest economy.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and RBC Capital are among the banks that are forecasting further rate cuts from RBA later this year.
Meanwhile, AUD/JPY plunged 0.71% to 92.50 while AUD/NZD inched down 0.07% to 1.1947. EUR/AUD rose 0.50% to 1.3875.
In Asian trading Friday, AUD/USD tumbled 0.57% to 0.9549. The pair was likely to find support at 0.9390, the low of October 4, 2011 and resistance at 0.9547, the session high.
On Thursday, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager and the world’s biggest issuer of exchange traded funds, said there are "prominent" U.S. hedge funds that are lining up to short the Australian dollar. A spate of recent, weak economic data makes that trade all the more alluring.
On Thursday, official data showed that Australia's trade surplus narrowed far more-than-expected in April, falling to AUD0.03 billion from a surplus of AUD0.56 billion the previous month.
Analysts had expected the trade surplus to narrow to 0.22 billion in April.
The data came after a report on Wednesday showed that Australia's GDP rose 2.5% in the first quarter from a year earlier, expanding at the slowest annual pace in nearly two years.
Those data points came after the Reserve Bank of Australia earlier this week left interest rates unchanged at 2.75%. However, a growing chorus of global banks expect RBA to continue cutting rates later this year as a way of fighting slowing growth in the world’s 12th-largest economy.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and RBC Capital are among the banks that are forecasting further rate cuts from RBA later this year.
Meanwhile, AUD/JPY plunged 0.71% to 92.50 while AUD/NZD inched down 0.07% to 1.1947. EUR/AUD rose 0.50% to 1.3875.