AUD/USD under pressure post-NFP data

The monthly employment report from the United States was sufficient to resurrect worries about economic growth and the possibility of entering a recession. After a long weekend, Australia will announce Westpac Consumer Confidence.

The AUD/USD pair falls for a sixth day in a row close to the 0.6600 level. After Wall Street’s opening, the AUD/USD pair continued its intraday decline to 0.6618, slightly recovering and now trading in the 0.6680 price range.

The pair dropped along with US indexes, which had a bad day’s start due to worries over a possible American recession.

Prior to the weekend, the Nonfarm Payrolls data revealed that the US added 236,000 new jobs in March, which was just under the market consensus of 240,000. Moreover, during the same time period, the Labor Force Participation Rate increased to 62.6% from 62.5% while the Unemployment Rate marginally decreased to 3.5% from 3.6%.

Last but not least, average hourly earnings, which are used to calculate annual wage inflation, fell from 4.6% to 4.2%. The news caused the US dollar to soar since it showed that the job market is still strong and that inflation is continuing to decline slowly.

The Federal Reserve’s (Fed) recently adopted dovish position was not altered by the NFP data. In April, the central bank is anticipated to increase its benchmark rate by 25 basis points before pausing. The decision by the Fed to stop the tightening cycle was hastened by the banking crisis that began with the failure of two regional banks in the United States.

After the Easter holidays, Australia will return from a long weekend and publish early on April Tuesday. Westpac Consumer Confidence foreseen at 0.8% after posting 0% in March.