Australian Dollar weakened in early Asian session after mixed economic data. But Aussie quickly recovered, partly helped by oversold conditions. On the negative side, retails sales rose 0.0% mom in July, below expectation of 0.3% mom. There were falls in three of the six industries, including household goods retailing (-1.2%), clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing (-2.0%) and department stores (-1.9%). The declines were offset by other retailing (1.7%), food (0.3%) and cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (0.6%)”. Also, ANZ job advertisements dropped -0.6% mom in August. That could point to easing momentum in job growth.
On the positive side, AiG Performance of Manufacturing Index rose 4.7 pts to 56.7 in August, indicating faster growth across the manufacturing sector. In particular, exports sub-index has jumped 8.5 points to 58.4 points. However, drought conditions in New South Wales and Queensland are now having an adverse impact on input costs and sales for some manufacturers. Company operating profits rose 2.0% qoq in Q2. TD securities inflation rose 0.1% mom in August.
