Australian dollar down 5.4% this year so far

Reported by the AFR, the AUD to USD conversion has fallen by 5.4% since the beginning of this year.

The drop in the AUD could be due to dampening hopes of Fed Reserve rate cuts and tensions in other countries. However, when this AFR article was published Carol Wong, an economist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, suggested that if today's Chinese GDP data comes in positive, AUD/USD may experience some temporary relief.

Since then, China's GDP data has been released, and the countries economy grew 5.3% in the first quarter, beating expectations.