Australian Dollar Ticks-Up As Chinese Trade Surplus Widens

Australian Dollar Ticks-Up As Chinese Trade Surplus Widens

For the 24 hours to 23:00 GMT, AUD weakened marginally against the USD to close at 1.0505.

LME Copper prices rose 0.1% or $8.3/MT to $8058.5/MT. Aluminium prices rose 1.7% or $34.5/MT to $2061.3/MT.

In the Asian session, at GMT0400, the pair is trading at 1.0548, with the AUD trading 0.42% higher from yesterday’s close.

This morning, on an annual basis, building permits in Australia rose 13.2% in November, against the expectations for an 11.6% and following a revised 19.2% surge recorded in the previous month. Separately, in China, the merchandise trade surplus widened to $31.6 billion in December, against the expectations for a surplus of $20.0 billion, following the $19.63 billion surplus in November. Meanwhile, exports increased 14.1% (YoY) in December, while imports rose 6.0% (YoY) in December. Moreover, the People’s Bank of China reported that the country’s broad money aggregate of M2 money supply increased 13.8% (YoY) to CNY 97.42 trillion.