Australian dollar down against US dollar and euro

Published: 2 Jan at 8 AM Tags: Euro, Dollar,

The Australian dollar has fallen against its US counterpart. The Aussie is currently trading down 0.39 per cent at $0.8889. Also down against the yen and the euro the Aussie is currently worth 93.67 yen, a fall of 0.28 per cent, and the single currency is up 0.36 per cent to 1.5472.

The drop in the value of the Aussie comes after data indicating manufacturing in Australia dipped at the end of 2013. For 10 months of last year the Australian manufacturing index has remained in contraction, only rising during September and October.

The euro is up against the dollar at $1.3764, a rise of 0.04 per cent. During December there was a rise in US consumer confidence. According to the Conference board, confidence was up from 72.0 in November to 78.1 in December. This beat a prediction of 76.0.

Standard and Poor’s home price index also rose on October by 13.6 per cent compared to the same month a year earlier. This is the strongest it has been since the beginning of 2006 and beat original forecasts of 13 per cent.

As the US economy continues to show signs of a strong recovery it is likely that the Federal Reserve will announce further reductions to its $75 billion a month bond buying programme.