fiscal stimulus would help Australia avoid recession

Foreign Exchange - Australian Dollar Outlook :

The Australian Dollar was firm yesterday, rising off the early low of 6245 to an intraday high of 6357 on expectations of a rate cut and stimulus plan to be annoucned overnight. We expected a "buy on the rumor" effect and got it to a high of 6421 (or a 38% retracement of the previous downmove). But then the "sell on the news" effect kicked in, and the A$ sank back to 6334. The move may not be over now that the US dollar is in an overall corrective mode. We imagine the corrective move could reach as high as 6550 before it fizzles out. This is the channel top on the hourly chart and near the 62% retracement. But probably more important is the Australian Dollar vs Japanese Yen, which we don’t usually follow. It got a minor bit of support from
the announcement but its still headed for a test of the lowest-ever low of 55.08 from last October.

The hard news is that the Reserve Bank cut rates by a full 1% to 3.25%, the lowest since 1964, and announced a new stimulus package of A$42 billion, to be focussed on infrastructure with some payments to consumers. Bloomberg says the packkage includes A$12.7 billion in grants to families and low-income earners and A$28.8 billion for infrastructure. It will help send the nation’s budget into an A$22.5 billion deficit, the first shortfall since fiscal 2001-02. The earlier Oct stimulus of about AUD $ 10 billion went mostly to low-income sectors like pensioners.

Treasurer Swan said “The weight of the global recession is now bearing down on the Australian economy. Economic growth is slowing and employment will weaken.” Unemployment will probably rise from 4.5% in Dec to 7% by the middle of next year, and growth will be lucky to hit 1% at the end of the fiscla year in June. The FT reports “Mr Swan said the fiscal stimulus would help Australia avoid recession by boosting growth by 0.5 per cent in 2008-09, rising to 0.75 to 1 per cent the following year. The International Monetary Fund at the weekend forecast Australia’s economy would contract by 0.2 per cent in calendar 2009.”

Bye For Now

Barbara Rockefeller
Forex Trading Reports

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