Corporate foreign exchange news
BNP: Sell Aussie over Loonie on bet China will shackle growth
Thursday, 30 July 2009 09:42:06 GMT

Foreign exchange traders should sell the Australian dollar over its Canadian counterpart on the bet that China will begin to limit bank lending and slow economic recovery in Asia, BNP Paribas has advised.In a Bloomberg Television interview, Sharada Selvanathan, a BNP currency strategist in Hong Kong, said that the Australian dollar, known as the Aussie, has benefited from China's "extremely loose" lending policy, with a correction likely in the wake of calls from Chinese policymakers for banks to tighten credit lines."If we do start to see tighter policy, I think were going to see significant adjustment on positions and that is going to bring the Aussie down," she surmised.Ms Selvanathan added that the Canadian dollar, dubbed the loonie, will outperform the Aussie because it is much more closely linked to economic recovery in the US.Speaking to Reuters, Hideki Hayashi, a global economist at Mizuho Securities, added that fluctuations in trading of Chinese equities are likely to continue to influence exchange rates in the coming months as traders recalibrate their attitudes to risk.

