The Australian dollar has continued to fall due to investor caution and falls in commodity prices.
At 7am AEST the local unit was trading at 96.42 US cents, down from 96.79 cents on Friday. Since 5pm AEST on Friday, the Australian dollar traded between 96.27 US cents and 97.52 cents.
The currency continued to be weighed down by data released last week that showed manufacturing activity in China started to fall in May.
Market negativity was exacerbated by a 7 per cent fall on Japan's share market on Thursday, and local shares also posted their largest losses in about 12 months.
BK Asset Management managing director Kathy Lien said last week was a tough one for commodity currencies like the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand dollars as traders stayed away from riskier assets.
''(These currencies) failed to recover even as the greenback gave up its gains towards the end of the week,'' she said. “The key release over the past week was the HSBC's Chinese PMI report because it raised fresh concerns about the outlook for the world's second largest economy and cut short the rally in equities.''
There is no major Australian economic data due to be published this week, but Ms Lien said the slide in the Australian dollar will be a focus for currency traders. The currency has lost more than seven per cent against the US dollar since the beginning of May.
“We caution against picking tops and bottoms in deep trends but we will also be looking for the currency to find support closer to 95 US cents,'' she said.
