Positive Australian housing data overnight saw investors Buy Australian dollars

Australian Dollar Rate Outlook

The euro exchange rate remained strong against the dollar in early New York trading Monday, hovering around the psychologically important $1.50 mark, after rising global stocks suggested markets would shake off last week's disappointing U.S. jobs data and continue to load up on risk.

Finance ministers and central bankers at this weekend's meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations didn't mention currencies in their official communique, removing what had been a possible obstacle to placing bets on higher-yielding currencies.

If U.S. stocks follow the lead of Asian and European exchanges, the euro and other higher-yielding currencies are likely to extend their gains against the best US dollar rate. U.S. stocks are expected to open higher.

In early morning trading, the euro was at $1.4991 from $1.4844 late Friday, according to EBS via CQG. The dollar was at Y89.95 from Y89.96, while the euro was at Y134.80 from Y133.53. The U.K. pound was at $1.6773 from $1.6608

The Dollar Index, a trade-weighted basket of six currencies, was at 75.109 from 75.784 late Friday. The index was flirting with nearly 15-month lows.

Positive Australian housing data overnight sent investors into the Australian dollar, which lifted other higher-yielding currencies. The Australian dollar hit a two-week high, at $0.9299, on the data that showed Australian housing-finance approvals rose 5.1% on the month in September, more than the 3% rise expected.

The continuing positive pace of Australia's economic rebound added to the view that the Reserve Bank of Australia may deliver more increases to its key interest rates in coming months, boosting investor sentiment for the Australian currency.

Australia's economic turnaround contrasts with the disappointing U.S. jobs data reported Friday, which showed unemployment rose above 10%, its highest level in nearly three decades.

The weekend's G-20 meeting in Scotland also proved uneventful for financial markets. The group didn't mention currencies at all in its final communique. Some analysts had expected exchange rates would be discussed.

More direction appeared to come from comments by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who warned against ending financial-crisis support programs prematurely. In other words, there won't be any rush to tighten monetary policy, which should continue to weigh on the low-yielding US dollar exchange rate.

There are no key U.S. data Monday, which means the euro exchange rate and other higher-yielding currencies should track the direction of the stock market.

To read more please visit Wall Street Journal

Pounds to Australian Dollars = 1.8013
Euros To Australian Dollars = 1.6633
Australian Dollars to US Dollars = 0.9298
Australian Dollars to New Zealand Dollars = 1.2457

Bye For Now
IMS Foreign Exchange
Buying Australian Dollars? Buy Australian Dollars at the Best Australian Dollar Rates!

Buy Travel Money Australian Dollars?

Contact IMS Foreign Exchange + 44 207 183 2790

Australian Dollar set to rise as RBA hike australian mortgage rates again

Australian Dollar Rate Outlook

A CHORUS of business leaders, led by Aussie chairman John Symond, has pleaded with the Reserve Bank of Australia to take baby steps in its push to raise interest rates away from "emergency levels".

The RBA stands to cripple thousands of homeowners if it raises official Australian interest rates too rapidly, in increments of more than 0.25 per cent, or by lifting rates above five per cent within a year, the home loan tsar told business leaders in Sydney yesterday, The Daily Telegraph reports. The Reserve is expected to lift its cash rate by 0.25 per cent, to 3.5 per cent, today with economists now ruling out the previously predicted "shock and awe" 0.5 per cent hike.

Relatively flat inflation figures, combined with further instability on global sharemarkets, have even raised the slim prospect of rates remaining on hold. Despite the softening economic environment, with the Reserve regularly stating the need to quickly move rates towards more neutral levels of 5 per cent, economists are now banking that official interest rates will hit 4.25 per cent within six months. Mr Symond told the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce such a rise would hurt the vulnerable. "Hopefully Glenn Stevens follows through with only gradual increases," he said.

"That's all we need. Let's hope they don't follow through with increases as dramatic as they cut on the way down. "An increase of 1 per cent over time is not going to make much difference, but 2 per cent and from there on, there are going to be a lot of people lose their homes." His sentiments were backed up by the Australian Retail Association. Executive director Russell Zimmerman said retailers were calling for calm from the Reserve and a hold on rates till next year to allow the sprouts of economic recovery to bear some fruit. "Retailers are concerned that interest rate rises now could slow down the wheels of economic recovery that are just starting to turn. Retailers are looking for a bit more momentum before higher interest rates start to take cash away from consumers," he said. Although higher interest rates will hurt its business, Myer was left licking wounds of a different kind yesterday.

The department chain, fronted by fashion icon Jennifer Hawkins, relisted its shares on the Australian sharemarket on a day of heavy selling across the board. Myer's shareholders, which include Hawkins, saw their initial investment in the company drop a staggering 8.5 per cent in minutes. Meanwhile, billionaire property developer Harry Triguboff suggested that interest rates need not be on pause, but should be clipped further to levels in the UK and US.

Pounds to Australian Dollars = 1.8157
Euros To Australian Dollars = 1.6357
Australian Dollars to US Dollars = 0.9023
Australian Dollars to New Zealand Dollars = 1.2450

Bye For Now
IMS Foreign Exchange
Buying Australian Dollars? Buy Australian Dollars at the Best Australian Dollar Rates!

Buy Travel Money Australian Dollars?

Contact IMS Foreign Exchange + 44 207 183 2790

Australian Property Prices set to rise even with stronger Australian Dollar

Australian Dollar Rate Outlook

TASMANIA'S Clarence City is Australia’s best property bargain according to a list of the country’s 100 hottest suburbs. Investors can pick up an average house in Clarence City suburbs of Clarendon Vale and Rokeby to Hobart's east for just $178,000, according to a report in Australian Property Investor magazine.

It’s a "long-term hold" but the area will see significant growth in five to seven years, the report says. The magazine asked Australia’s top property experts to list the hottest 100 suburbs poised for "strong capital growth" over the next 12 months.

With an average median house price of $548,000 across the 100 locations, news.com.au identified the cheapest of those suburbs and they are listed below. You can read the full list in the magazine, which is out today. Also released today, the Australian Property Monitors quarterly house price series showed house price growth of 3.7 per cent over the September quarter.

"Moderate to strong growth is expected across the market as a whole for the remainder of 2009 and 2010," APM's Matthew Bell said. "The question as to whether this growth can be sustained throughout 2010 depends on how quickly mortgage rates rise in the next six months," Mr Bell said.

Hottest suburbs with the lowest average house price

Queensland
Gympie $260,000
Ipswich $269,000
Kingaroy $270,000
Beaudesert $311,000

New South Wales
Gunnedah $208,000
Branxton $349,000
Granville $353,000
Shoalhaven $388,000

Victoria
Portland $189,000
Redan $194,000
Hastings $270,000
Frankston $300,000

WA
Geraldton $345,000
Thornlie $363,000
Bassendean $415,000
Hamilton Hill $430,000

Tasmania
Clarence City $178,000
Lutana $282,000
Mount Nelson $420,000
Hobart $425,000

NT
Rapid Creek $568,000

South Australia
Ceduna $245,000
Glanville $249,000
O'Sullivan Beach $261,000
Christies Beach $301,000

ACT
Gungahlin $458,000

Pounds to Australian Dollars = 1.8218
Euros To Australian Dollars = 1.6294
Australian Dollars to US Dollars = 0.9037
Australian Dollars to New Zealand Dollars = 1.2450

Bye For Now

IMS Foreign Exchange

Buying Australian Dollars? Buy Australian Dollars at the Best Australian Dollar Rates! Buy Travel Money Australian Dollars?

Contact IMS Foreign Exchange + 44 207 183 2790

Best buy Australian Dollar as the exchange rate looks towards Parity

Australian Dollar Rate Outlook

The Australian dollar was once again a top performer to finish the week’s trade as speculators poured into the progressively higher-yielding Aussie currency. Hawkish rhetoric by Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens underlined the bank’s resolve to tighten monetary policy sooner than later. Indeed, Overnight Index Swaps are now pricing in an impressive 200+ points of rate hikes in the coming 12 months-by far the most of any G7 central bank. All else remaining equal, this should provide solid Australian Dollar support against lower-yielding counterparts. Yet the pace of Australian Dollar appreciation has been nothing short of impressive, and one has to wonder whether the currency can continue its recent advances. An effectively empty economic calendar gives little in the way of foreseeable event risk in the week ahead, and as such it remains most important to watch for major moves in key asset classes.

A speech by RBA Governor Glenn Stevens set the tone for what may be an aggressive wave of monetary policy tightening. Stevens discusses monetary stimulus in light of the global financial crisis, emphasizing that Australia seems to have weathered the broader economic crisis and escaped relatively unharmed. Economic resilience suggests that previously aggressive interest rate cuts have done their job, and in fact the central bank has already begun reversing its monetary policy accommodation. In its recent rate hike the RBA stated that rate hikes should "gradually" be pulled back.

Yet Stevens surprised many when he effectively foreshadowed rate hikes with similar intensity to the large cuts we saw through the financial crisis. He clarifies that he does not believe that the Australian economy is currently "too strong", but he does go on to say "that the very low interest rate settings were designed for a weaker economy than we are in fact facing." Interest rate expectations jumped on the commentary, and in fact markets are now pricing in a 50 percent chance of an aggressive 50 basis point (0.50 percent) rate increase through the November meeting.

Expectations are running high for Australian Dollar yields and the currency itself. The key question in the weeks and months ahead will be whether reality can match those lofty expectations. As it stands, a number of respected research desks have called for Australian Dollar parity against the US Dollar rate in the coming months. Yet near record-high Aussie correlations to key commodity prices suggest that AUD forecasts may depend on broader moves in key financial asset classes. Suffice it to say, there should be no shortage of excitement in upcoming Australian Dollar trade.

or the full story visit www.dailyfx.com

Pounds to Australian Dollars = 1.7679
Euros To Australian Dollars = 1.6162
Australian Dollars to US Dollars = 0.9257
Australian Dollars to New Zealand Dollars = 1.2295

Bye For Now

IMS Foreign Exchange

Buying Australian Dollars? Buy Australian Dollars at the Best Australian Dollar Rates! Buy Travel Money Australian Dollars?

Contact IMS Foreign Exchange + 44 207 183 2790

Australian dollar could soon be worth 1.100 US Dollars

Australian Dollar Rate Outlook

THE Australian dollar appears headed towards parity with the US dollar after Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens agreed the economy's strength could drive it"way up" to $US1.10.
The dollar jumped after Mr Stevens also suggested that the Reserve Bank would not be “too timid” in further increasing the official interest rate, breaking through US92c to reach 14-month highs. His comments startled foreign exchange market analysts and encouraged money markets to bet that the Reserve would lift its cash rate from 3.25 per cent to at least 3.75 per cent before Christmas and keep lifting next year, The Australian reports.“I tend to agree with him,” the Commonwealth Bank’s chief currency strategist, Richard Grace, said of Mr Stevens’s Aussie dollar bullishness.

But while Mr Stevens suggested the dollar’s rise was the result of Australia’s economic vigour, Wayne Swan warned that it would hurt farmers and other export industries. “I do understand some people will do it really tough as a consequence of a higher AUD rate ,” the Treasurer said. Since October 2, just before the Reserve Bank lifted its 3 per cent “emergency” cash rate, the dollar has gained nearly 7 per cent, from US86c to US92.11c in European trading last night. The dollar’s rise could further increase the tension between the Reserve Bank’s rate rise move and the Rudd government’s rejection of calls to unwind its budget stimulus more quickly. In theory, an expansionary budget policy pushes up an economy’s exchange rate.

The Reserve Bank is not intervening in foreign exchange markets to dampen the currency’s ascent, which is akin to a policy tightening that mostly hits exporters and businesses that compete against imports. But it also contains inflation by making imports cheaper. The Australian sharemarket rose again yesterday on the back of improved investor confidence in the Australian and global economies, with the All Ordinaries index gaining 28.5 points or 0.59 per cent to hit a one-year high.

Mr Stevens was asked at a breakfast function in Perth whether the Reserve Bank had any tools to prevent speculators buying Australian dollars to $US1.10. Mr Stevens replied that, rather than speculators, there usually was a rational reason for big exchange rate movements. “You could do a scenario where the exchange rates goes way up,” he said. “We’ve got one of the better-performing economies in the world. Even at very low interest rates, we still have a positive differential and we’re a country where the people here are, I think, reasonably confident about the future and foreigners are fairly confident about our future, and it’s not entirely surprising that they’re a bit keen on the currency.”

Mr Stevens suggested that this could change if economic recoveries in other countries surprised on the upside. “But you could do a scenario of the one you suggest and, in that world, perhaps inflation is lower, but the reason the AUD exchange rate is up there is probably that there are some very strong growth dynamics and trade dynamics at work here.”

The Australian dollar exchange rate has not traded at parity with the US dollar rate since the local currency floated in late 1983, but appeared headed towards this level before the global crisis hit.

for the full story visit http://www.news.com.au

Pounds to Australian Dollars = 1.7738
Euros To Australian Dollars = 1.6155
Australian Dollars to US Dollars = 0.9226
Australian Dollars to New Zealand Dollars = 1.2395

Bye For Now

IMS Foreign Exchange

Buying Australian Dollars? Buy Australian Dollars at the Best Australian Dollar Rates!

Contact IMS Foreign Exchange + 44 207 183 2790

Get in the queue for an Australian property boom

Australian Dollar Rate Outlook

IT'S the proof we've been waiting for that the housing boom is back - at dinner tables across the country talk is returning to the old conversation chestnut, Australian property prices.

While the global financial crisis made us all armchair investment analysts, now lower interest rates, government bonuses and the first home market boom was again making property the hot topic.

On any given Saturday huge numbers of prospective buyers are flocking to open houses everywhere. Nowhere is the craze more evident than in the median home market, where young families are trying to make the most of the demand from first time buyers to sell and trade up for more space.

But with medium-priced houses in limited supply, real estate circles are rife with rumours of auction punch-ups and inspection queues rivalling nightclubs. Sydney's Michelle Wheeler and Reima Woolhouse have been riding the $700,000 to $1.2 million price bracket explosion for six months.

The pair recently sold two properties and have been renting while they try to find a home with a bit of space. "There are properties we wanted to buy but we didn't make the first open house because they have sold before then or they just didn't tick the right boxes for us," Ms Wheeler said. "We've been starting to feel a bit disheartened. "We've been saying to each other selling the two properties was less stressful than buying."

On Saturday, the pair inspected an original Californian bungalow on Iandra St, Concord West.
Likely to sell for about $900,000 at auction next month, it is on the market for the first time in 45 years and requires significant work. The home had more than 35 groups through, many expressing interest. Paul Pettenon from Raine and Horne Concord said homes such as that had been selling just days after being advertised.

Recently, a two-bedroom Concord property that did make it to auction attracted 36 registered bidders. "It was mayhem, you couldn't control it actually," he said.

"I have been in real estate for 15 years and I have never seen anything like it."
And it is not just the inner-west. Megan Bruton from McGrath Hunters Hill said open houses around Ryde have needed three open house agents to deal with the record numbers of people inspecting homes.

"Previously when we launched a property we would get 20 or 30 groups through if it was really hot," she said. "But now we are getting 60 to 75 which equates to about 120 to 200 people for just a half-hour." Business analyst for LJ Hooker David Maher said low stock and high demand in the second-home buyer's bracket was making a seller's market.

"What everyone has been focusing on is the first-home buyer's market but that is simply not true," he said. According to his figures, homes in the $700,000 to $1.2 million range were selling at auction 80 per cent of the time, up from the beginning of the year when only 40 per cent were selling. "Auction clearance rates haven't been this good in many years," Mr Maher said.

Real Estate Institute of NSW president Steve Martin said many new people were in the market.
"First-home buyers in particular are feeling in control of their own destiny and not in the hands of landlords," he said. "When there is insecurity, buying property becomes a security."

For the full story visit www.news.com.au

Pounds to Australian Dollars = 2.0800

Euros To Australian Dollars = 1.7700

Australian Dollars to US Dollars = 0.7826

Australian Dollars to New Zealand Dollars = 1.2450

Bye For Now

IMS Foreign Exchange

Buying Australian Dollars? Buy Australian Dollars at the Best Australian Dollar Rates!

Australian Dollars Travel Money - visit http://www.blogger.com/www.travelfx.co.uk

Contact IMS Foreign Exchange + 44 207 183 2790

Australian Banks Downgraded

Australian Dollar Rate Outlook

Moody's says that its industry outlook for banking systems in Australia and New Zealand is negative, reflecting the impact of the slowdowns in global and domestic economies, but both
systems also remain robust.

These headlines helped keep New Zealand Dollars and Australian Dollars exchange rate trading near the lows overnight, and on the open in London we've sold Australian Dollars for real money names. However the dip in New Zealand Dollars rate has seen some good exporter demand as resting bids are finally filled.

Pounds to Australian Dollars = 2.0800
Euros To Australian Dollars = 1.7700
Australian Dollars to US Dollars = 0.7826
Australian Dollars to New Zealand Dollars = 1.2450

Bye For Now
IMS Foreign Exchange

Buying Australian Dollars? Buy Australian Dollars at the Best Australian Dollar Rates!
Contact IMS Foreign Exchange + 44 207 183 2790