AUD/JPY revisits yearly high near 101.60 after upbeat Australian employment data

Australian Dollar Price Today

The table below shows the percentage change of Australian Dollar (AUD) against listed major currencies today. Australian Dollar was the strongest against the Swiss Franc.

	USD	EUR	GBP	JPY	CAD	AUD	NZD	CHF
USD		0.03%	0.07%	0.09%	0.05%	-0.25%	0.18%	0.13%
EUR	-0.03%		0.04%	0.05%	0.02%	-0.27%	0.16%	0.12%
GBP	-0.07%	-0.04%		0.02%	-0.02%	-0.31%	0.12%	0.07%
JPY	-0.09%	-0.05%	-0.02%		-0.06%	-0.34%	0.05%	0.04%
CAD	-0.05%	-0.02%	0.02%	0.06%		-0.28%	0.13%	0.09%
AUD	0.25%	0.27%	0.31%	0.34%	0.28%		0.43%	0.44%
NZD	-0.18%	-0.16%	-0.12%	-0.05%	-0.13%	-0.43%		-0.05%
CHF	-0.13%	-0.12%	-0.07%	-0.04%	-0.09%	-0.44%	0.05%

The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the Australian Dollar from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the US Dollar, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent AUD (base)/USD (quote).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has reported that the economy created a fresh 42.2K jobs, beating estimates of 20K and the prior reading of 12.8K, revised lower from 14.9K. Additionally, the Unemployment Rate also decelerated to 4.3%, larger than expectations of 4.4% and the previous release of 4.5%.

Signs of improving labour market conditions often force traders to pare bets supporting more interest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) in the near term.

Traders have already been doubting over the RBA easing interest rates further as inflationary pressures in Australia are proving to be persistent. In the third quarter of the year, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) grew at a stronger pace of 1.3%, against 0.7% growth seen in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, the Japanese Yen (JPY) trades cautiously as the Bank of Japan (BoJ) is unlikely to tighten its monetary policy in the near term. BoJ hawkish bets have receded as newly elected Japan’s Prime Minister (PM) Sanae Takaichi has been favouring fiscal expansionary policies.

On Wednesday, Japan PM Takaichi said after fiscal and economic policy council meeting, “Monetary policy needs to aligned with goals for the economy, stable prices.”

Economic Indicator

Employment Change s.a.

The Employment Change released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics is a measure of the change in the number of employed people in Australia. The statistic is adjusted to remove the influence of seasonal trends. Generally speaking, a rise in Employment Change has positive implications for consumer spending, stimulates economic growth, and is bullish for the Australian Dollar (AUD). A low reading, on the other hand, is seen as bearish.