The Australian Dollar tumbled one US Cent on Friday night in an interesting end to the week as base metals prices fell lower, as markets became concerned about the pace of global growth.

Australia: In currency markets, the US Dollar was softer following the release of weaker-than-expected non-farm payrolls.

The commodity currencies (including the AUD) were weaker given the implications for global growth, as were key commodity indices and the price of iron ore (which showed notable weakness, according to one pricing source).

After some trepidation about forecasts for Friday's payrolls report in the wake of the weaker than expected ADP report and a rise in jobless claims, most of the report underwhelmed the market on its release.

Payrolls notched up a disappointing 88K gain, well shy of the 190K consensus (even with +61K revision to Jan and Feb), headline growth below the 100K bottom of the range of forecasts.

The household survey was soft with a 206K drop in the month, reversing a 170K rise in February. One headline that was better was the 0.1% drop in the unemployment rate to 7.6%, though even here that was flattered by a drop in the participation rate. So for the AUD, its softening to below 1.0400 was interesting despite a softer USD in the wake of payrolls.

The AUD trading in the 1.0300's ahead of this week's key employment report Thursday and, ahead of that, ANZ Job Advertisements today, tomorrow's March NAB Monthly Business survey and Wednesday's Consumer Sentiment.

Majors: The Euro zone also continues to slow with Euro zone retail sales falling by 0.3% February with the strong January read revised down to +0.9%. This fed into expectations of an easing in monetary policy by the European Central Bank as soon as the May meeting.

In other European news, the Portuguese Government approved new austerity measures over the weekend after its High Court struck down some of its existing measures.

Base metals prices were generally lower on Friday night as markets became concerned about the pace of global growth with copper declined 0.5% after the soft US payrolls result.

Bulk commodity prices were mixed, as with thermal coal rising 0.6% and iron ore off a whopping 5.8%. Not a huge week for scheduled offshore releases with China back to day after late week holidays, having CPI/PPI on Tuesday and trade figures
on Wednesday.

The Fed releases its March FOMC minutes Wednesday night with plenty of Fed speakers also this week.
Economic Calendar
08 APR AU AiG Performance of Construction Index Mar
AU ANZ Job Advertisements Mar
JN Current Account Balance Feb
US International Economic Forum Confrence

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