The Australian dollar has fallen more than half a US cent after the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s October policy meeting showed that it’ll likely wind back its economic stimulus program in the coming months.
At 0700 AEDT on Thursday, the local unit was trading at 93.31 US cents, down from 93.96 cents on Wednesday.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) left the $US85 billion-a-month bond-purchase program in place but expects economic data in the coming months will improve enough to begin the long-awaited tapering.
LTG GoldRock director Andrew Barnett said the greenback rallied against most major currencies after the US central bank announcement, pushing the Australian dollar lower.
“Essentially, they were expecting the economic data to support tapering and that was enough to send the Aussie dollar back lower and that’s what the Reserve Bank of Australia wants,” he said.
“The market was expecting the Fed wouldn’t taper until 2014, but that’s been put to rest in these minutes.”
Barnett said he expects the Australian dollar to fall below 90 US cents in the coming weeks as the Federal Reserve decreases its asset purchases.
The currency’s lowest point of the year was 88.48 US cents in August.
“If the Fed does start a little tapering in December then we could see the lows of this year between now and Christmas,” Barnett said.
“This is a bit of a game changer for the Aussie dollar.”
On Thursday evening, RBA governor Glenn Stevens will give a speech on the 30th anniversary of the floating of the Australian Dollar to the Australian Business Economists (ABE) Annual Dinner in Sydney.
It was widely expected that Stevens will again complain about the “uncomfortably high” Australian dollar, but, Barnett said, the RBA governor may get his wish thanks to the Federal Reserve.
“It seems, at the moment, the Fed has more control over the Aussie dollar than the RBA,” Barnett said.
AAP
