The Australian dollar strengthens today after surprisingly strong readings from the domestic labour market. The change in employment in November came in at 35.6 thousand jobs while 25 thousand was expected, following 15.9 thousand in October. Moreover, unexpectedly, the unemployment rate fell below the 4% level, to 3.9%, while the market was expecting it to rise, to 4.2% from 4.1% in the previous month. Today's strong data overshadowed the recent weaker readings of wage growth and GDP for Q3 2024. The AUD is gaining and is one of the strongest currencies today; the AUDUSD pair is up 0.6%.
- Australia's part-time employment rate fell 0.1 percentage points to 6.1%, the lowest level since April 2023. Unemployment is at its lowest in eight months. The domestic labor market is proving much stronger than expected.
- Traders are backing off expectations of an RBA rate cut in February 2025, while the central bank adopted a 'dovish tone' a few days ago, opening the door to policy easing. The market is now pricing in a 55% chance of a rate cut in February 2025, compared to nearly 70% before the data reading. The RBA's current rate is 4.35%.
AUDUSD chart (D1 interval)
The AUDUSD pair rebounded for the third time from around 0.632. We can find the key long-term resistance level at the level of the 200-session exponential average, EMA200 (red line). However, in the short term, 38.2 Fibonacci retracement at 0.652 will be a key resistance.
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Source: xStation5
