Is the Australian dollar set to fall on a Biden win?
We are 13 days away from the election. Many polls state that Biden is winning the votes – however that’s what happened in the 2016 election. With big banks citing a decline in the Dollar over a Biden win, what will happen to commodity currencies such as the Australian Dollar and the Canadian Dollar against the US Dollar?
The Australian Dollar against the US Dollar has had a strong comeback, up 30% from its March lows. This was due to Australian commodity prices such as copper, nickel, and iron rebounding as manufacturing restarted worldwide.
Australian Dollar against green policy
If Biden were to be re-elected, a risk to the Australian Dollar is his supposed $2 Trillion push for a greener future, pushing initiatives that would create the opportunity cost for using cheap power sources such as oil and coal as supposed to greener alternatives such as solar and wind, lower. A report by BloombergNEF showed that the “Levelized cost of electricity for onshore wind projects has fallen 9% to $44 megawatt-hour since the second half of last year… with solar [declining] 4% to $50 a megawatt-hour”. They also cite that prices are lower in countries such as the United States, China, and Brazil, and that “Best in class solar and wind projects will be pushing below $20 per megawatt-hour this side of 2030”. This is not good for commodity currencies such as the Australian Dollar and the Canadian Dollar, as they are notoriously known to sell off when green policies are enacted.
Therefore, it is likely that the Australian Dollar will sell off if Biden is elected. Given a predicted selloff too in a US dollar, we may see the pair make a violent move to the downside. Near the end of September, we saw a selloff in the pair, retesting that healthy 0.7 support level. The AUD/USD has been ranging ever since between the 0.7 and the 0.725 marks. However, a Biden win may see the currency pair down to 0.6925, a historically strong support/resistance level, and a full Fibonacci retracement from 0.74 to 0.6925.
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