dollar but we thought it might be worth diving a little deeper and seeing how

the Australian dollar has been performing over the last two years.

To get a better idea of where it's actually sitting at the moment.

In the last few weeks we've seen the Australian dollar hit an 11 month low after hitting a high

in January, so we've seen it change a lot this year. In this video we're going to

look at the Australian dollar against the US dollar, the Euro, the Pound and the

New Zealand dollar. And we'll have a look at what the major banks are forecasting

for the Australian dollar by the end of the year.

Generally when you hear about the Australian dollar its compared against the US dollar because this gives

us the best idea of how it's performing globally. We've had a lot of fluctuation

against the US dollar recently but since the beginning of 2016 the Australian

dollar has been steadily climbing. This climb can be attributed to three things;

increasing commodity, prices steady interest rates and a generally weaker US

dollar.

It's a slightly different story for the Australian dollar against the

Euro because these currencies have been on a bit more of a roller coaster.

The Aussie spent all of 2016 rising to its peak of 72.5 Euro cents

in early 2017. Since then it's fallen more than 10

cents. This fall is less to do with the Australian dollar being weak and more to

do with the fact that the European economy has strengthened over the last

couple of years.

Brexit had the biggest impact on the Australian dollar against the Pound.

Brexit took everyone by surprise which is why the pound weakened so suddenly.

Against the Pound, the Australian dollar rocketed 30% in the middle of

2016 when it happened. Since then the Aussie has been on a downward trend.

This is because the economy has held up much better than people expected post Brexit.

Okay let's have a look at the Australian and New Zealand dollar exchange rates.

In the last two years the exchange rate has been pretty volatile between the Aussie

and New Zealand Dollars. We've seen it go up and down quite a bit but it always

seems to be stuck somewhere between 1.0250 and 1.1250. The biggest movers

for these currencies have been commodity prices and interest rates in New Zealand.

So now that we know what's been happening with those currencies, let's

have a look at what the banks are forecasting for the Australian dollar

against the majors by the end of the year.

As you can see, forecasts for the Australian dollar against most

currencies is for it to go down slightly or stay the same. This is quite different

to the optimistic forecasts the banks had at the start of the year, which saw

the Australian dollar going up by June. So what does all of this mean? Well, while

the Australian dollar has dropped against the Euro, Pound and even the US

dollar recently. Its lowest point this year is still higher than it was 18

months ago against the US dollar. So it's really not all bad news.

Hopefully this video has given you a better idea of where the Australian

dollar is at the moment and made us realise that it's really not as

pessimistic as it might seem.

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