Capital Economics overnight note on the Australian dollar, with a substantial forecast cut

CapEco were at 0.65 for 2019, now predict 0.60

  • were at 0.70 for AUD in 2020, now at 0.60

Citing, on the Oz side:

  • commodity prices. We think that they will generally decline this year as China's economy, which is a major trading partner of Australia, slows further. We expect especially large falls in the prices of iron ore … and coal, which together account for 30% of Australia's exports
  • The second is waning appetite for risk. We expect the US stock market to come under pressure again in 2019. On past form, when that has happened the Australian dollar has tended to fall
  • we now think that the ongoing downturn in the housing market will deepen, causing GDP growth to fall below potential. In light of this, we think that interest rates are more likely to fall than to rise in 2019 and 2020

On the US side:

  • Admittedly, we now think that the US federal funds rate will be cut to 1.75%-2.00% by end-2020, which is also about 40bp below what is currently priced into the market.