Australia’s mortgage lending showed a decline in September 2014. This is confirmed by official figures. At the same time, most experts assume that the decline in the local mortgage lending is going to continue till the end of the year, Market Leader reports.
In particular, the decline amounted to 0.7% during the reporting period as opposed to August 2014. The data were published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics the other day. Apparently, the newly released figures disappointed the economists who had expected only a minor decline around 0,3% over the course of September.
It should be noted that the Reserve Bank of Australia previously warned about major imbalances seen in the local banks’ mortgage portfolios. At that time, the central bank indicated that almost 50% of mortgage loans are of speculative nature. This fact gives us to understand that the tendency is probably going to keep on manifesting itself in the near future, at least until the end of the year.
Meanwhile, record-low interest rates triggered higher housing prices in Australia. Last year, the increase reamed 10%. As of September, the financing volume in the local construction sector increase by 3.1% in September month-over-month.
Forex: AUDUSD
Meanwhile, Masterforex-V Academy reports that the US Dollar is still strengthening against its Australian counterpart, which means that the AUDUSD exchange rate is going down. It is confirmed by the chart below, courtesy of Masterforex-V Academy.
In particular, this is still a long-term downtrend. AUDUSD is currently developing wave 5 or a sub-wave of the “Hound of the Baskervilles” pattern by Elder/MF. The wave level is at least Weekly2. On November 12th, 2014, the currency pair finished wave 5 or sub-wave of level Daily. If there is a break below the local low at 0.8540, we are likely to witness elongation of the wav and the entire move.
The closest levels of support are 0.8462/39, 0.8398, 0.8352/39. A break above the top of the MF sloping channel and pivot 0.8910 will terminate the wave.
