The Australian dollar set new lows yet again on Thursday as safe-haven demand for its US counterpart overshadowed surprisingly strong news on the domestic economy. The Aussie was also dragged down by a slumping Kiwi dollar after New Zealand's central bank sprang an unexpectedly large 50 basis-point rate cut on the market.
Late in the session, the Aussie was off at $0.7973, having fallen as far as $0.7945 at one stage from $0.8075 late here on Wednesday. It also lost ground to 85.60 yen, a fall of 19 yen in less than two months, as worries over slowing global growth drove investors away from riskier trades in commodities, and currencies exposed to them.
This global shift in cash outweighed signs of unexpected resilience in the labour market at home. Government data showed employers hired a net 14,600 more workers in August, triple expectations. The jobless rate also confounded analysts by declining to a five-month low of 4.1 percent - two percentage points below that in the United States.
Investors were still pricing in a cut in interest rates from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), following last week's easing to 7.0 percent. But the probability of a move as early as October diminished to 76 percent from over 90 percent early in the week.
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