Aussie Dollar May Gain on Commodities

The Australian dollar may start the year gaining against refuge currencies like the yen, and currently not so attractive currencies like the pound and the euro as a global recovery expected for 2010 may trigger stronger demand for commodity exports from Australia, favoring the national currency in foreign-exchange markets.

The Australian currency ranked among the top performing currencies versus the greenback last year thanks mostly to, later confirmed, speculations that the Reserve Bank of Australia would be the first country to raise interest rates after the worst moments of the global crisis stayed in the past, after the first semester of 2009. This year though, as the nation’s central bank stopped a series of interest rate hikes in the South Pacific economy, commodities are the factor likely to push the Aussie up, as the global economic recovery may to boost manufacturing production in Asia, which is the first destination for Australian raw material exports.

Even if the Australian dollar may gain versus the yen and currencies like the Swiss franc, it is unlikely that it will touch its record high reached in 2009 beyond 0.93 versus the greenback, as the U.S. economic recovery is providing support for a strong greenback in the mid term.

AUD/JPY started the year falling to 83.19 from 83.71 last year.

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