PERTH: The Australian dollar on Thursday began to ease off recent highs, as traders and investors were again starved of any market-moving releases.
In late local trade the Aussie was fetching US78.08¢, compared with US78.58¢ at the same time on Wednesday, and a high for the week of US79.38¢.
Despite lack of trading cues, data or news the market was braced for further gyrations in late international trade, with any surprises in US employment claims for March likely to trigger sharp moves in the greenback.
Dovish signalling last week from the US Federal Reserve has combined with patchy economic data to raise doubts about the timing of long-awaited monetary tightening in the world’s biggest economy.
The resulting rise in the Australian dollar against its US counterpart could force the Reserve Bank of Australia to hike rates next month instead of May, suggest mounting bets in the futures market.
Thursday’s pricing now has the odds of an RBA follow-up to its 25 basis point cut in February with another at its April 7 policy meeting at 68 per cent, compared with 41 per cent on March 17.
That was the day before before the US Federal Reserve signalled it wasn’t in a hurry to raise lending rates.
