The Australian dollar will reach parity with the U.S. dollar in September then overtake it for a few months, a currency expert with Australia’s largest bank said yesterday.
As Australia’s currency soared to a 25-year high today, trading at US97.64c triggered by a surging gold price, Commonwealth Bank chief currency strategist Richard Grace expected it to soon surpass the greenback on strong income from Australia’s exports and an ailing U.S. economy.
It was the local currency’s highest closing level since January 25, 1983 – in the days of a fixed exchange rate – when the Australian dollar ended the local session at 97.90 US cents.
“Our thinking is it will spend three months beyond parity ... it’s not just a U.S. dollar story, we think the Aussie will appreciate across the board with the pound the yen and the euro,’’ Mr. Grace said. “We have got a very strong Australian dollar story; we’ve got an investment boom going on in this economy and we think the Aussie dollar is adjusting to export and import prices and strong terms of trade,’’ he said. More here.
Note: The current exchange rate with the Canadian dollar is 0.973.
