Why The Australian Dollar Is Getting Smashed Today

The Australian dollar is getting slammed.

Here's a chart, via FinViz, of the last several hours.

So what's going on?

A combination of weak data, and dovish talk.

In an email, SocGen's Kit Juckes explained:

If this is a market-moving week, it will be because of what emerges from the FOMC meeting (tomorrow) and the US ISM and payroll data (Friday). Today is therefore a bit of a sideshow, dominated overnight by another AUD fall. Very soft building approvals (-6.9% in June with May revised lower), were followed up by RBA Governor Stevens saying that inflation data still give the RBA scope to ease further. The rates market has promptly priced in a rate cut (to 2.5%) for the August 6 RBA meeting with even greater conviction than before. The AUD has already fallen a fair way but there is probably another 10% of downside to come.