Aussie declines after RBA interest rate decision

Australian dollar fell against most major rivals after the Reserve Bank of Australia's policy decisions. 

The RBA decided to hold interest rates unchanged at 3.6% as expected by analysts. 

It's clear the RBA is starting to slow down the pace of policy tightening as inflation slows down as well.

Today, AUD/USD fell 0.5% to 0.6752 as of 20:30 GMT.

The Dollar

The dollar index fell 0.5% to 101.6 as of 18:52 GMT, with a session-high at 102.2, and a low 101.4. 

In a surprise move, OPEC and allies including Russia announced voluntary production cuts amounting to 1.65 million bpd starting May and until the end of the year.

The step came outside the usual timeline for the global alliance to review market conditions, which was supposed to happen today, Monday.

That cut adds to a previous cut agreed upon in October 2022 and amounting to 2 million bpd.

After the move, Goldman Sachs raised its estimates for Brent prices to $95 by the end of the year, and $100 a barrel in 2024.

A recent opinion poll by Fed Watch put a 60% probability of a 0.25% rate hike by the Federal Reserve in May, up from 50% on Friday.

Otherwise, earlier US data showed the JOLTS Job Openings index with a 9.931 million openings in February, down from 10.563 million openings in January, while analysts expected 10.49 million.

Loonie

The Canadian dollar fell 0.1% against its US counterpart to 0.7436 as of 20:38 GMT.