The Australian dollar reached a fresh 24-year high against the U.S. dollar today as the consumer prices in Australia soared above the market’s expectations in March and are now pressing on the central bank to go for the further interest rate hikes.
Both Australian and New Zealand dollar continued to rise today after the yesterday’s fast growth as the investors remained confident in the stock markets’ improvement and in the carry trade.
According to Australia’s largest mortgage provider, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the U.S. dollar will perform worse than experts previously expected for this year.
The New Zealand and Australian currencies continued their bearish trends against the Japanese yen today and dropped on Forex market during the Asian trading session, as the Japanese stock market plunged.
The Reserve Bank of Australia increased the national benchmark rate for the second time in 2008 — from 7.00% to 7.25%. The last time interest rate was increased on the 5th of February.
After one of the worst weeks for the U.S. dollar and the attraction of the large capitals to the high-yielding assets this week, the Australian dollar reached its record high value against USD in 24 years.
New Zealand dollar reached the two months high level against the Japanese yen and almost broke the more than 6 months record high level against the U.S. dollar today. Aussie also showed a similar dynamic of growth — it came close to the 2 months old records against yen and reached its highest value against the U.S. dollar since November 2007.
The Australian dollar rose today against other major currencies, as the bank’s minutes release hinted markets that the Reserve Bank of Australia will probably increase the interest rate by 25 basis points again next month.
According to the new research note by Richard Grace from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, it would be better to buy Australian dollar with euro in 2008 to earn from the interest rates difference.
Today during the Asian trading session on Forex Australian dollar continued its bullish trend against the U.S. dollar and reached the new maximum value since 14th of November, 2007.