Speculations of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue for Ireland sends the Australian dollar to open lower this morning.

The local currency was trading at $US 93.78 cents which is lower than Friday's close of $US 94.39 cents. It has traded between $US 93.55 cents and $US 94.69 cents since 5 p.m. on Friday.

The Australia dollar can buy the British pound at $AU 1.66, the Euro at $AU 1.38, and the Canadian dollar at $AU 1.03. It could be exchanged with a unit of the Chinese Yuan for $AU 0.15 cents, the Hong Kong dollar for $AU 0.13 cents, and the Japanese Yen for 0.01 cent.

The New Zealand Kiwi is worth $AU 0.77 cents. Against the Singapore dollar, the local unit is equivalent to $AU 0.79 cents.

According to Commonwealth Bank vice president of institutional banking and markets Tim Kelleher, “The Australian dollar was very strong during the Asian session after talk that the Bank of Japan was buying Aussie/yen as well as dollar/yen and there were certainly a couple of names out of Hong Kong buying lots of Aussie dollars.”

Kelleher forecast the local unit to step before the end of today. He expected trading between $US 93.5 cents and $US 94.1 cents.