The Australian dollar fell versus most Group-of-10 currencies as traders focused on the nation's rising jobless rate even as employment numbers improved in October.
The Aussie fell as much as 0.7% to 0.6463 after the nation's unemployment rate rose to 3.7% last month, the highest since May 2022. Weak China housing data also dampened risk sentiment and weighed on the Aussie.
In the Australian labor market, "there are plenty of jobs but also plenty of labor supply given record migration, which is limiting the upward pressure on wages growth," said David Forrester, a senior currency strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in Singapore. "We think AUD/USD continues to hover around 0.6500 into the year-end. The US rates market is overly optimistic on Federal Reserve rate cuts for 2024 and China's economic recovery remains soft".
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index edged up 0.1% while the policy sensitive 2-year Treasury yield lost one basis point to 4.90%.
Traders were also weighing the impact of US President Joe Biden referring to Xi as a "dictator," as he repeated remarks that sparked criticism from China earlier this year.
NZD/USD declined 0.8% to 0.5973, dragged lower on sales against AUD and JPY after weak China home sales data sent Hong Kong stocks lower, according to an interbank trader.
USD/JPY fell 0.1% to 151.25 since closing up 0.7%.
Source : Bloomberg
