AUD

As gold edged near the $1,000 per ounce mark, the Australian Dollar quietly gained across the board on Monday, touching a one year high against the US Dollar. The strength of the Aussie was helped by the announcement of a .6% rise in the Down Under economy, the largest gain in the developed world.  

Also, the job situation was given a boost as advertisements for jobs in newspapers and internet postings rose for the first time in 16 months.  

The official unemployment data is expected this Thursday and analysts are now revising their estimates downward.  It is the official government position that the unemployment rate, now sitting at 5.8% will rise to as much as 8.5% by next year, however there are now calls for the government to restate that number as it appears the market is improving ahead of estimates.

At 11:00PM GMT, the Australian Dollar was up .6% to the US Dollar to .8555, up .3% to the Euro to 1.676, up .62% to the Japanese Yen to 79.56 and up .53% to the Swiss Franc to .9066.  The Aussie was down .4% to the Canadian Dollar to .9219 and down .2% to the Kiwi to 1.2344 as commodity price increases helped boost the two resource reliant currencies.   

In other news…..

The US and Canadian markets were closed for Labor day holiday observances, so Forex trading was very light on Monday.  

The Bank of England will meet on Thursday and it is expected that they will keep interest rates at .5%.  However it is of interest to traders whether or not the BOE will expand or contract its credit easing measures.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the Bank of Canada meet on Thursday too and are also expected are expected to keep rates unchanged.