Australian dollar opens to weekly high

The Australian dollar opened almost a cent higher as it broke through the 92 US cent mark to a weekly high after five consecutive positive sessions.
At 0700 AEDT, the Australian dollar was trading at $US0.9229/34, up from Friday's close of $US0.9134/37.
During the offshore session, the Unit traded between $US0.9123 and $US0.9229.
Westpac New Zealand market strategist Imre Speizer said the local unit appeared set to carry on, buoyed by positive weekend sentiment.
"It's a continuation of the bullish mood around the Aussie... rather than anything out of the United States," Mr Speizer said from Wellington.
The gains followed the release of higher-than-expected US unemployment figures contained in payrolls data during Friday's offshore session.
Unemployment in the US jumped to double digits in October for the first time since 1983, reaching 10.2 per cent, prompting renewed talk of stimulus for an economy struggling to emerge from recession.
Friday's Labor Department report, seen as one of the best indicators of economic momentum, showed job losses narrowed last month to 190,000.
But Mr Speizer said there had been mixed leads after the payrolls data were released.
"The US payrolls was the report everyone was looking to provide guidance for risk in general across the board, but it had a mixed result so the equity markets in the States weren't sure what to make of it," he said.
"The price action was very confused. It kind of went down and up, down and up, finishing the session slightly higher, but not by much."
Mr Speizer said commodities remained "solid across the board".
"There was not a clear cut cause and effect out of that US payroll report and the reason is one of the headline numbers, the number of people employed, was better than expected, but only when you factored in revisions, and the second number, the unemployment rate, got worse."
He said there was enough negativity in the report to suggest that should have been negative for risk assets.
"The Aussie itself made a recent high over the last week after five consecutive sessions of gains," he said.
He predicted the Unit would trade during the domestic session between $US0.9150 and $US0.9280.
The outlook for the currency was "bullish" after recent rhetoric from the Reserve bank of Australia and stellar mergers and acquisitions flow, he said.
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