Halister News

(Bloomberg) -- AUD/USD could test this month’s 0.7732 high if August full-time jobs rebound from a nearly three-year low and halt 2016’s downward trend, according to Bloomberg analyst Michael G. Wilson.

• Full-time roles fell by 46.1k in July, and for 2016 so far, all net job creation has been part-time; such positions spiked by 71.6k in July, the most in seven years
• The dominance of part-time suggests slack in the labor market, and the wage pressures needed to lift inflation toward the RBA’s goal may be missing, analysts said after the July report
• Downward revisions have been made to the full-time jobs component in 8 of the last 10 data releases while 12-month moving average of part-time work is at highest since 2010
• For August, employers probably added a total of 15k full and part-time jobs, based on median estimate of 26 economists in Bloomberg survey; forecast range is 18k losses to 45k additions (prior +25.3k); unemployment rate est. 5.7% (5.7%); data due 11:30am Sydney on Thursday
• Should the full-time component rebound, AUD/USD may gain, helped by weaker expectations for a U.S. rate hike since Fed Gov. Brainard’s comments Monday
• AUD/USD is now down 0.2% to 0.7550; it has tested and held 100-DMA so far this week, setting up a test of trend-line resistance adjacent to 0.7732, the Sept. 8 high
• NOTE: Michael Wilson is an FX strategist who writes for First Word. The observations he makes are his own.