Thomas Mathews, the head of markets Asia Pacific at Capital Economics , says the Australian and Kiwi dollars "have fared worse than almost every other currency over the past few months".
He says in this second Trump era (which he measures from when Trump's odds of winning the presidency began to shorten in early-October 2024), the only currency to fare worse than the Aussie and Kiwi is South Korea's (if you remember, there was recently an attempt by South Korea's president to impose martial law). The US dollar has been on the back foot lately, unwinding some of its earlier Trump-era gains as US Treasury yields have edged a bit lower. But not all of the currencies that plunged the furthest during the greenback's late-2024 rally have led the charge on the way back up. In particular, the Australian and New Zealand dollars, which suffered more than most when the US dollar was rallying, have been in the middle of the pack, at best, since the greenback began to slide in mid-January. The result is that they've fared worse than almost every major currency, developed or emerging market, over the Trump era . At face value that's arguably quite surprising, given that neither Australia nor New Zealand is directly in Trump's firing line. Both countries are, after all, probably small enough to slip under the radar, and in any case are fairly strong US allies (especially Australia), don't have large trade surpluses with the US, and have quite low tariffs and trade barriers. The graph below shows the change in value in different currencies, compared to the US dollar, since 30 September last year, through two distinct periods. If you can see it, the black dots represent the total change in value for each currency. The Kiwi and Aussie dollars are the final two columns on that graph, which shows how much value they've lost compared to the greenback.
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He says in this second Trump era (which he measures from when Trump's odds of winning the presidency began to shorten in early-October 2024), the only currency to fare worse than the Aussie and Kiwi is South Korea's (if you remember, there was recently an attempt by South Korea's president to impose martial law). The US dollar has been on the back foot lately, unwinding some of its earlier Trump-era gains as US Treasury yields have edged a bit lower. But not all of the currencies that plunged the furthest during the greenback's late-2024 rally have led the charge on the way back up. In particular, the Australian and New Zealand dollars, which suffered more than most when the US dollar was rallying, have been in the middle of the pack, at best, since the greenback began to slide in mid-January. The result is that they've fared worse than almost every major currency, developed or emerging market, over the Trump era . At face value that's arguably quite surprising, given that neither Australia nor New Zealand is directly in Trump's firing line. Both countries are, after all, probably small enough to slip under the radar, and in any case are fairly strong US allies (especially Australia), don't have large trade surpluses with the US, and have quite low tariffs and trade barriers. The graph below shows the change in value in different currencies, compared to the US dollar, since 30 September last year, through two distinct periods. If you can see it, the black dots represent the total change in value for each currency. The Kiwi and Aussie dollars are the final two columns on that graph, which shows how much value they've lost compared to the greenback.
