Although the rate of new construction and home sales have fallen since early-year highs, today’s domestic home loans data for Australia provided hope that increased demand would lead a recovery in the real estate sector.
Overall home loans for April surpassed the consensus 2.8% growth rate, reaching a near record 4.8% month-to-month increase. Today’s data indicates a pace not reached since December 2008, when new home loans grew at 6.8% on a monthly basis. April’s Owner-Occupied Home Loans, discounting rental or resale properties also jumped to a high not reached since March 2009.
Australian Home Loans; Chart generated with Bloomberg LP Professional Terminal
Although today’s duo of real estate data broke the string of worse than expected reports from the sector since the early part of 2011, it did little to reverse the AUDUSD decline. For the early part of the Asian trading session, markets continued to sell high-yielding assets after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s dovish remarks on the US economy. At the time of writing, the Australian benchmark ASX 200 was off -0.91% at 4524, led lower by oil and gas.
Read DailyFX's digest of Chairman Bernanke's speech here.
AUDUSD 5 minute chart – vertical line indicates time of release. Chart generated with FXCM Strategy Trader.
DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.
Learn forex trading with a free practice account and trading charts from FXCM.
