Australian Dollar Rises After RBA Bullock Signals Willingness To Hike Rates

(RTTNews) - The Australian dollar strengthened against other major currencies in the late Asian session on Thursday, after the Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock said the policy board will not hesitate to lift interest rates if needed to contain persistently high inflation.

The board is vigilant on upside risks on inflation, the hawkish governor said in a speech on Thursday.

She noted that the gap between aggregate demand and aggregate supply in the economy is larger than previously thought and this is resulting in persistent inflation.

The growth of demand is expected pick up over the next year, but Bullock cautioned that there is considerable uncertainty around the outlook. The effect of this was that the expectations for when inflation will fall back to target have been pushed out, the governor said.

However, Bullock said, "… the Board remains vigilant with respect to upside risks on inflation and will not hesitate to raise rates if it needs to."

In the European trading now, the Australian dollar rose to a 2-day high of 1.0940 against the NZ dollar, from an early 3-day low of 1.0868. On the upside, the AUD/NZD pair may find resistance around the 1.12 region.

The aussie advanced to 0.9014 against the Canadian dollar, from an early 3-day low of 0.8951. The next possible upside target for the AUD/CAD pair is seen around the 0.91 region.

Against the U.S. dollar, the yen and the euro, the aussie edged up to 0.6565, 96.31 and 1.6653 from early lows of 0.6510, 94.73 and 1.6788, respectively. If the aussie extends its uptrend, it is likely to find support around 0.67 against the greenback, 99.00 against the yen and 1.64 against the euro.

Looking ahead, U.S. weekly jobless data is due to be released in the New York session.