AUD/USD to rise toward 0.73 on a three to six-month view – Rabobank

According to analysts from Rabobank, the AUD/USD encouraged by domestic data should rise toward 0.73 in a three to six-month view. They don’t see the Reserve Bank of Australia with any rush to hike interest rates.  

Key Quotes: 

“The release of Australian Q3 GDP was old news even as it hit the newswire. The -1.9% q/q contraction referred to a period when many Australian were impacted by lockdowns and contrasts with the optimism for a strong bounce back starting in Q4. Despite a slow start to its vaccine rollout at the start of the year, the strength of recent progress on this front has underpinned confidence in the ability of the Australian economy to once again demonstrated that it can bounce back strongly from lockdowns. This, however, does not mean that the RBA will be in any rush to hike interest rates.”

“The RBA is not expecting underlying inflation to reach the middle of its target until the end of 2023 and Lowe maintains that the first increase in the Cash rate may not be before 2024. Even if this target slips, it is clear that the RBA will be well behind the Fed when it comes to hiking rates in the forthcoming cycle.”

“The downtrend in AUD/USD since the start of last month suggests that Lowe’s guidance on policy has had an impact. CFTC data suggest that speculators are holding sizeable short net AUD positions. In view of the RBA’s expectation that the Australian economy can bounce back sharply into 2022, we expect that better domestic data is likely to encourage a modestly better tone in AUD/USD on a 3 to 6 mth view back towards the 0.73 area.”