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The Australian sharemarket has opened flat, shrugging off recent falls on global share markets on the back of China’s surprise devaluation of its currency.

The yuan had strengthened along with the dollar, hurting exporters and raising the risk of politically risky job losses in manufacturing industries that employ tens of millions of workers. Holders of yuan can preserve value by purchasing bitcoin and then cashing out to yuan,...

Now, China has done a U-turn.

“Any devaluation greater than five to seven percent would be a serious problem for global markets and China’s trading partners”, said Ashraf Laidi, chief executive officer at Intermarket Strategy Ltd, a research firm in London.

Some economists said the devaluation was also designed to support Beijing’s push for the yuan to be included in a basket of reserve currencies known as Special Drawing Rights (SDR), which are used by the worldwide Monetary Fund to lend money to sovereign borrowers. So...

Beijing allowed the yuan to drop to its three years low and the U. The People’s Bank of China said market forces would be given a bigger role in setting the exchange rate, leaving open the possibility of more declines.

Gold steadied not far above a 5-1/2-year low on Monday, with a firm dollar after solid US job gains in July suggesting that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates as early as next month. On Friday, the dollar rose as high as US$0.9885, its loftiest peaks since late March....

The report was not bad enough to derail the Fed’s and markets’ expectations for a rate hike this year, and it was not stellar enough to lock in a September rate hike.

The unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at a seven-year low of 5.3 percent, near the 5.0 percent to 5.2 percent range most Fed officials think is consistent with a steady but low level of inflation.

Low interest rates have helped boost stocks since the financial crisis, raising some concerns about how the market will react when rates begin to rise.

This comes after a disappointing first quarter that saw the economy grow by a revised 0.6 per cent. Meanwhile, Europe has been consumed with resolving a stubborn debt crisis in Greece. It expects China to expand 6.8 per cent, which would be the slowest growth rate for the country...

“If the Fed get this wrong, then gold will rediscover its mojo in a big way”, Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG, said. While growth remains disappointing by historical standards, the Fed said the economy continued to expand at a “moderate” pace,...

The dollar fell 1.1 percent against a basket of currencies after the data on employment costs.

Gold’s slide has helped wipe out half the gains from the last decade’s historic Bull Run, taking prices back to a key chart level and threatening a break towards $1,000 an ounce.

This comes after the US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen indicated that interest rates could be hiked this year. That triggered a renewed bout of selling in commodities markets around the world, with precious metals, including gold, hit hard. This makes the dollar more...