AUD: Australian Dollar has not demonstrated progress on Friday

At the Forex currency market the Australian Dollar rate almost stands still at the end of the week, as investors prefer to refrain from sharp movements today after full bunch of information received this week.

Forex forecast: MACD indicator for the pair AUD/USD has merged with the signal line and is not giving a clear signal. Stochastic Oscillator is going down in the neutral zone, giving a sell signal and coming closer the oversold zone.

Forex recommendations: in case of breakdown at the level of 1.0380, the pair will go to 1.0370 and 1.0350.? If downward breakdown does not take place, the pair will consolidate at the current levels.

This week, the Reserve Bank of Australia announced reduction in the interest rate up to 4.50% per annum, by 25 basis points, which in general agreed with expectations. In the follow-up comments the RBA noted that inflation is being curbed now, due to the high rate of the currency and low demand of population; regulator expects that in 2012 inflation will be at the level of 2-3%. The Bank also emphasized deterioration of the conditions in the labour market and decrease in prices for the raw materials. Concern about developments in Eurozone is still high, and growth rate of the national economy seems to be moderate. According to RBA, lending rates are now slightly higher than the average level, despite softening of general conditions

It also worth noting, that RBA hinted at further lowering of the rates if general conditions do not improve.

Unemployment rate in Australia declined to 5.2% in September against the level of 5.3% in August. This data shows progress for the first time since this March.? Employment rate rose by 20.4 thousand last month, while analytics expected the growth of not more than 10 thousand. As noted in the Bureau of Statistics in Sydney, coal mining companies hire staff to meet demand for raw materials from China and India.

According to the data released earlier, consumer confidence WESTPAC in Australia rose by 0.4% m/m, to the level of 97.2 points in October. Monetary politician, Mr. Evans pointed to a chance that the rate might go down in November, since low growth of the index indicates general pessimistic sentiment.

Business confidence NAB in Q3 amounted to -4 points in Q3; while the index had been at the level of +5 points in Q2. According to estimates of the observers, the level of employment, sales and corporate profit in the country has dropped considerably. Business conditions in the three- month term amounted to +5 points against +10 points previously and to the level of +18 points on annual basis against prior +27 points. Sharp decline in the indicator kicked off a quarter earlier, is still going on. As it became known earlier retail sales in Australia rose by 0.4% m/m in September against the growth of 0.6% m/m in August. The data agreed with expectations; the growth has been observed in all retail sectors, although it was just minor.?

We would remind that according to the data released earlier, CPI in Australia rose by 0.6% q/q (+3.5% y/y) in Q3 against the forecast of growth by 0.5% on quarterly basis. At the same time, inflation increased by 0.9% on quarterly basis in Q2; slowdown in CPI is obvious. It is worth noting that seasonally-weighted CPI rose by 0.3% (it is being tracked by RBA). Growth of inflation has been the lowest since Q3 in 1997.