Australian Dollar Falls As Australia Jobless Rate Climbs

(RTTNews) - The Australian dollar weakened against other major currencies in the Asian session on Thursday, after data showed that the nation's unemployment rate rose more-than-expected in January.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that the unemployment rate in Australia came in at a seasonally adjusted 4.1 percent in January. That was above expectations for 4.0 percent and was up from 3.9 percent in December.

The Australian economy added just 500 jobs last month to 14,201,900 - well shy of forecasts for an increase of 26,400 jobs following the loss of 65,100 jobs in the previous month.

Crude oil prices settled lower, snapping a seven-day winning streak after data showed a big increase in crude inventories in the U.S. last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March ended down $1.23 or about 1.6 percent at $76.64 a barrel.

In the Asian trading today, the Australian dollar retreated to 97.33 against the yen and 1.6560 against the euro, from an early 2-day highs of 97.85 and 1.6508, respectively. If the aussie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 96.00 against the yen and 1.67 against the euro.

Against the U.S. and the Canadian dollars, the aussie slipped to 0.6478 and 0.8775 from an early 2-day highs of 0.6502 and 0.8802, respectively. The aussie may test support around 0.63 against the greenback and 0.86 against the loonie.

Moving away from an early high of 1.0674 against the NZ dollar, the aussie edged down to 1.0650. On the downside, 1.05 is seen as the next support level for the aussie.

Looking ahead, Eurozone foreign trade figures for December is due to be released at 5:00 am ET.

In the New York session, Canada housing starts for January and manufacturing sales data for December, U.S. retail sales data for January, weekly jobless claims data, import and export prices, industrial production for January, business inventories for December, U.S. NAHB housing market index for February are slated for release.