Australian dollar below psychological US81.00 cents

Financial and commodity markets analytics

The Australian dollar has fallen through the psychological US81.00 cents barrier, as a fall in key commodity prices such as oil and the local export Iron ore weighed on the currency.

At 5.47pm (AEDT) the Australian dollar is trading at US80.98 cents after falling to as low as US80.87 cents a little earlier in the day.

Iron ore fell overnight to $US67.90 a tonne, and Brent Crude oil dropped more than 2% towards the $US60.00 a barrel mark.

IG market strategist Stan Shamu said iron ore and oil stocks had jumped quite a bit over the last few days but today the rally ran out of steam,  

'We've seen a pullback in iron ore and crude oil,' Mr Shamu said.

'That's the main source of the weakness that we're seeing today.'

Without the presence of local data, the Aussie dollar may come under further pressure today in the lead up to the release of the latest Durable goods report and quarterly GDP numbers from the US.

The consensus for the durable goods figure is a number of 1.8% well up on last month’s figure of 0.4%, and with the momentum lying with the US dollar over the last few sessions we may see the American currency continue to strengthen as the day unfolds.