RBA (read from the bottom up for the chronology):
Other:
The focus of the early part of the session was on the Australian dollar, Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Lowe speaking, and then the minutes of the RBA June meeting.
This is how it played out (there’s a “but” at the end):
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AUD/USD inched a little higher on approach to Lowe speaking. Sure enough, Lowe delivered an expected hawkish message, reinforcing that further rate hikes are ahead. AUD/USD did have a sharp dip during Lowe’s Q&A session when he pushed back on market pricing of a 4% cash rate by year-end. AUD/USD soon recovered though but found its (brief) excursion above 0.6980 a step too far. On the releases of the minutes (June meeting) AUD dropped back a little again. There were a few further messages in the minutes that rate hikes would not be getting near a 4% rate by the end of this year. The minutes were not dovish though, just further push back.
- Since then AUD/USD has straddled 0.6970 and thereabouts.
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The “but” to all this is that while AUD was higher, so was EUR, GBP, NZD, and especially CAD against the US dollar. So, some USD weakness played a role also.
On CAD, it caught a bit of a tailwind from oil prices ticking higher during the session.
USD/JPY and USD/CHF are little net changed here in Asia-Pacific.
AUD/USD, the sharp dip on Lowe’s remarks about the unlikelihood of a 4% cash rate in 2022 is marked with an arrow: