Australian dollar surges on Clinton email news

The Aussie dollar spiked past US77c after the FBI ruled out charges against Hillary Clinton over new emails.

The Aussie dollar briefly spiked past US77c after the FBI ruled out any charges against Hillary Clinton over new emails.

The local currency surged to US77.08 at 7.52am (AEDT) as news broke that an FBI review of new emails did not uncover any wrongdoing by Ms Clinton, the Democratic US presidential candidate, and that it had not changed its July recommendation not to charge her.

By 8.14am, the dollar had slipped back to US76.88c.

At noon (AEDT), the local unit was trading at US76.77 cents, up from 76.69 cents on Friday.

Overnight, the Aussie had strengthened slightly against its US counterpart, despite a steady US jobs report that has reinforced the likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate rise.

“The focus remains on Tuesday’s US election, the mood is risk-averse,” Westpac senior market strategist Imre Speizer said earlier, before the FBI news emerged.

The Aussie dollar earlier slipped to US76.52c on the US jobs data but quickly recovered, reflecting the overall risk-averse sentiment in the market.

The US presidential election is shaping up to be a close race, with favourite Ms Clinton’s lead in the key swing states quite slender.

The market expects little change until the election results are known by Wednesday (Australia time)

“The Australian dollar retains upwards daily momentum, but will find it difficult to sustain a break above 0.7700 (US77 cents) ahead of the US elections,” Mr Speizer said in a note.

With AAP

AAP