Foreign Exchange and International Money Transfers Update

Some market updates:

EUR:

The euro picked up half a cent against sterling and one and a quarter US cents. With the Cyprus bailout all but sorted investors had no motive for renewed selling. The European Central Bank president sent the euro higher by reassuring investors that the clumsily-managed Cyprus bailout would not be the template for similar such actions in the future for these massive international money transfers available online.

USD:

The dollar lost a cent to the pond and slightly more than that to the euro. The bulk of the selling came on Friday afternoon when investors were disappointed by the monthly change in US nonfarm payrolls. Instead of the expected 191k new jobs in March the actual figure turned out to be 88k, raising fears that the US economy had taken a turn for the worse in the foreign exchange market.

CAD:

The Loonie lost a cent to the pond and barely managed to hold its own against the US dollar. Friday’s sell-off was the result of disappointing North American employment data. Instead of the predicted small increase, the net change in Canadian employment showed a loss of 54.5k jobs and the rate of unemployment jumped from 7.0% to 7.2%.

AUD:

The Aussie lost two cents to the pound and one to the US dollar, mainly as a result of events elsewhere. The European Central Bank president’s reassurance that any future bailouts in Euroland would be handled less clumsily than the recent one in Cyprus dampened investors’ appetite for the safety of the AUD. On Friday weaker than expected American employment data raised concern about global demand for Australia’s exports.

NZD:

The Kiwi lost half a cent to the pound and quarter of a cent to the US dollar, mainly as a result of events elsewhere. The European Central Bank president’s reassurance that any future bailouts in Euroland would be handled less clumsily than the recent one in Cyprus dampened investors’ appetite for the safety of the NZD. On Friday weaker than expected American employment data raised concern about global demand for New Zealand’s exports.