Australian Dollar (FXA) Hits New Highs

The Australian Dollar (AUD) continued to rally today as the Japanese nuclear crisis seemed to stabilize and investors turned their attention to riskier, but higher yielding assets. Higher commodities also helped the Australian currency higher, with gold hitting all time high before retreating back what looked like profit taking. As was the case with most of the major currencies, the Australian Dollar saw a lot of volatility during the Japanese disaster and the nuclear crisis, first falling to this year's low of 0.9704 against the US Dollar (USD), and then, after the confidence was restored, it moved to recover all the losses and today hit a new high for 2011 at 1.0227. The AUD/USD pair has retreated slightly since, and is currently trading at 1.0204. The Australian currency moved higher against the Euro (EUR) and the Japanese Yen (JPY) also, as the EUR/AUD pair fell from 1.3920s to 1.3860s, and the AUD/JPY jumped from 81.80 to 82.80.