Overnight, the Reserve Bank of Australia released the minutes of the policy meeting, which hardly influenced the sentiment of the investors. The Aussie dollar is still giving in to the stronger US dollar. The contents of the minutes reveal that the RBA officials expanded mainly on economic prospects. Australia's GDP dropped by 0.5% in the third quarter. Experts do not foresee a further contraction in the economy and expect economic growth at 0.5% in the final quarter of 2016. Australia's GDP data for the fourth quarter is due on March 1st. GDP growth largely depends on economic conditions in China, Australia's key trade partner. That is why market participants are also alert to the GDP report from China. Absorbing the minutes from Australia's regulator, investors did not find any outlook for inflation rates. The board only stated that consumer inflation has not acheived a target level of 2% yet.
Nevertheless, the officials expressed confidence that slowly but surely headline inflation is heading for the target level. On the whole, the minutes represented the optimistic view on the economy. However, it did not provide the Australian dollar with solid support. Today, the AUD/USD pair dipped below 0.7690 and is going on its decline. The pair fell to 0.7661 in the Asian trade today. Analysts say that the US dollar gained ground against its rival currencies as comments from a Federal Reserve official drove up demand for the US currency. Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank president Patrick Harker made a remark late Monday that the rate hike in March is still on the table of the rate setting committee. He noted it makes sense to follow the agenda and raise rates three times this year. So, the US dollar received a boost from these hawkish comments.