Dollar slightly lower in quiet trade

THEdollar is slightly lower, unable to break out of its current range with very little economic news to give the currency market direction.

THE Australian dollar is slightly lower, unable to break out of its current range with very little economic news to give the currency market direction.

At 12pm AEDT today, the local unit was trading at 103.45 US cents, down from 103.50 cents yesterday.

Since 7am AEDT today, the Australian dollar has traded between 103.42 US cents and 103.74 cents.

Easy Forex currency dealer Anthony Botros said currency markets don't seem to be doing very much at the moment ahead of the conclusion of the G20 summit in Moscow.

"You can assume going into the G20 summit that moves would be contained at the moment," he said. "The Bank of Japan's reluctance to add stimulus (after its meeting yesterday) failed to give the Aussie dollar the kick up the backside to break that 103.70 level."

Mr Botros said 103.70 US cents was the level at which a lot of investors currently were selling the Australian dollar, which was why it had failed to reach 104.00 cents in the past couple of days. Until there was more economic news to give traders direction, he said, that trend was likely to continue.

"What we've been saying to clients is to keep an eye on the technical levels. 103.70 does seems quite sound at the moment. There have been some rumours that there are some hedge funds that are looking to sell at 104.00 US cents or a little above," Mr Botros said. "Whether they stay true to those levels remains to be seen."

Mr Botros said the currency market's next focus would be the end of the G20 summit of finance ministers and central bankers in Moscow today.

He said traders would be looking for comments from individual participants, expressing concern about the strength of the euro, and Japan pushing down the value of their currency.

Meanwhile, the Australian bond market was stronger. At 12pm AEDT today, the March 10-year bond futures contract was trading at 96.470 (implying a yield of 3.530 per cent), up from 96.430 (3.570 per cent) yesterday. The March three-year bond futures contract was at 97.130 (2.870 per cent), up from 97.090 (2.910 per cent).