The Australian dollar has had a boost from the US dollar sell-off overnight, rising 0.3% to 67.36 US cents.
Earlier this month, it climbed as high as 67.66 US cents (on January 7 to be precise).
But if we look through that, the local currency is trading around its highest level since October 11, 2024.
In other words, the Aussie dollar is near a 15-month high (or its strongest in more than a year).
So that’s great if you’re travelling to the United States for a holiday (or another country that uses US currency), but not so great if you run an export business trying to sell goods to America at more competitive rates.
The weaker US greenback is boosting the Australian dollar., (LSEG)
The US dollar index, on the other hand, dropped 0.8% overnight.
In case you’re wondering, that index is a way of tracking the value of the US greenback against a basket of major currencies (including the euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc).
The difference is even more stark when you compare the US and Australian dollars’ performances over the past 12 months.
While the Aussie dollar is up 8.7% over the past year, the US dollar index is down almost 10% in that time.
In short, President Trump’s policies are the main reason the greenback is so weak — from starting global trade wars, erratic shifts in policy and passing a “Big Beautiful Bill”, which will lead to ballooning US government debt.
This has led to what’s known as the “sell America” trade as investors divest their US assets (ie. currency and bonds) in favour of “safer” alternatives like gold (which has been hitting records constantly in the past year).