AUD/USD falls ahead of Australian employment data, Toyota exits the south-pacific nation

Australian dollar fell against its US counterpart on Monday ahead of the official report on employment change in Australia, scheduled for release on Thursday, while Toyota Motor Corp. said it intended to terminate its operations in the south-pacific country.

AUD/USD touched a session low at 0.8920 at 7:36 GMT, after which consolidation followed at 0.8928, losing 0.35% for the day. On Friday the pair reached highs unseen since January 14th at 0.8999, while recording the largest weekly advance since the week ended on September 6th, or 2.37%. Support was likely to be found at February 5th low, 0.8874, while resistance was to be encountered at February 7th high, 0.8999.

The Australian statistics bureau may report on February 13th that nations rate of unemployment rose to 5.9% in January, a level last recorded in June 2009, according to the median forecast by experts surveyed by Bloomberg News. In December the rate was 5.8%. Australian employment probably increased by 15 000 in January, after a drop by 22 600 a month ago.

The yield on Australian 3-year bonds dipped one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to reach 2.99%, after climbing to 3.03% at the end of last week, which has been the highest level since January 10th. The yield on nations benchmark 10-year bonds rose to 4.18% on Monday, or the highest point since January 23rd.

In its quarterly monetary policy statement released on February 7th, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) revised up its economic growth and inflation rate forecasts for Australia due to weaker exchange rate of the national currency, while also reiterating its neutral stance regarding policy.

Annualized core consumer price index is expected to reach 3.0% in late June, or 0.5% higher in comparison with the previous forecast, announced three months ago. The central bank projects a rate of inflation in the range of 2.25% – 3.25% by December this year, or a revision up by 0.25% compared to the prior forecast.

Meanwhile, Toyota Motor Corp., which began producing automobiles in Australia in 1963, said that high manufacturing costs and low economies of scale urged the company to decide to close its factories in the country, an e-mailed statement revealed. Toyota appears to be another car producer to announce that it is pulling out of Australia, following Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co., as they decided to terminate their production operations in the south-pacific nation last year.

In the United States, retail sales probably remained flat in January compared to December, according to preliminary estimates, after a month ago they rose 0.2%. The Census Bureau is expected to release the official numbers on February 13th.

Elsewhere, the Aussie was lower against the euro, with EUR/AUD cross gaining 0.29% on a daily basis to trade at 1.5272 at 8:02 GMT. AUD/NZD was little changed on Monday, ticking up a mere 0.01% to trade at 1.0802 at 8:04 GMT, after earlier climbing to as high as 1.0820.