Because of bad news on Australian exports, the AUD/JPY has dropped to roughly 97.00

The Australian Bureau of Statistics' announcement of disappointing trade data has sent the AUD/JPY currency pair plunging. Since Australian exports have dropped so significantly, the cross has depreciated to around 97.00. Monthly export figures for the commodity-linked currency fell 9.9 percent, well below the expansion of 5.0 percent that had been predicted. There was also an increase of 5.2% in imports, up from 0.7% in the prior report. The Trade Balance is at $8,733m, down substantially from the forecasted $14,500m.

The Australian dollar has risen this week against the Japanese yen due to a number of factors. First, the Official Cash Rate (OCR) in Australia was raised to 2.85% by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), marking the fourth consecutive increase of 50 basis points. RBA Governor Philip Lowe has maintained the central bank's "restrictive" stance on interest rates since inflationary pressures in the Australian economy have not peaked.

The RBA included a strategy for bringing inflation down to target levels in its announced monetary policy. Advice on interest rates and inflationary pressures deserved rigorous scrutiny. OCE hike forecasted by RBA policymakers to 3.85%. Inflation will reach its highest point of about 7% before beginning to fall the following year. Naturally, this will deepen the existing gulf in policy stances between Australia's Reserve Bank and Japan's Bank of Japan (BOJ).

The next step is the release of conflicting GDP estimates. Australia's quarterly GDP came in at 0.9%, which was below expectations of 1% but higher than the prior announcement of 0.8%. The yearly figure, however, has increased to 3.6% from the estimated 3.5% and the prior print of 3.3%.

Optimistic GDP data in Japan have supported the bulls in the Tokyo currency market. When compared to forecasts of 2.9% and the prior figure of 2.2% on an annualized basis, the latest economic data shows a significant increase to 3.5%. Furthermore, quarterly data have been recorded at 0.9%, which is above both the 0.7% forecast and the 0.5% previous report.