The Australian Dollar rose to near a two-week high after January inflation data came in above forecasts. AUD\/USD gained over 0.85% to about 0.7120 after CPI rose 3.8% year on year and trimmed mean CPI moved from 3.3% to 3.4%.<\/p>\n
The US Dollar Index fell towards 97.70 amid uncertainty about US trade policy. EUR\/USD traded near 1.1800 and was up by over 20% after softer Eurozone inflation data supported expectations of steady ECB policy.<\/p>\n
GBP\/USD traded near 1.3550, reaching a one-week high after a period of consolidation. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said a March rate cut is possible and noted that services inflation remains high.<\/p>\n
USD\/JPY traded around 156.40, close to an almost three-week high, during uncertainty about the Bank of Japan\u2019s rate outlook. Gold traded at $5,205, up 0.75% on the day, after losing ground earlier in the week.<\/p>\n
Upcoming data includes Tokyo February CPI and US initial jobless claims on Thursday. On Friday, releases include Swiss Q4 GDP, Germany\u2019s February flash CPI and HICP, Canadian Q4 GDP, and the US Producer Price Index. Central banks added 1,136 tonnes of gold worth about $70 billion in 2022, the highest yearly purchase on record.<\/p>\n
The significant rise in Australian inflation suggests the Reserve Bank of Australia may be forced to act more aggressively than anticipated. This 3.8% CPI reading is the third consecutive month above the RBA’s target band, a pattern we also observed back in 2023 before a series of rate hikes. Traders should consider buying Australian Dollar call options, particularly against currencies with a dovish central bank, like the Japanese Yen.<\/p>\n
Weakness in the US Dollar appears set to continue, driven by uncertainty around American trade policies. The market is reacting to renewed trade friction, and recent data from the Census Bureau showed a 5% drop in US exports for January 2026, deepening concerns. We see opportunities in buying put options on the US Dollar Index (DXY) as a direct play on further declines ahead of the Producer Price Index report.<\/p>\n
The Japanese Yen is exhibiting profound weakness due to the Bank of Japan\u2019s hesitant stance on raising interest rates. This policy divergence is widening, a situation we haven’t seen this starkly since the 2022-2024 period when other central banks were hiking aggressively. A strategy to consider is buying AUD\/JPY call options, which would benefit from both expected Australian rate hikes and Japan\u2019s continued easy-money policy.<\/p>\n
Gold’s rally to over $5,200 is supported by a confluence of geopolitical risk and the falling US Dollar. This move is underpinned by strong institutional demand; central bank buying, which hit records back in 2022, reportedly accelerated in late 2025 with major emerging economies leading the purchases. We believe buying Gold call options or using call spreads to limit costs remains a viable strategy to hedge against ongoing uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australian Dollar hits two-week high after hot inflation; USD slips, majors steady, gold rises, key data ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":16959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}