Ella 
The AUD/JPY cross was facing some selling pressure near the 99.00 mark during early European trading on Friday. A rise in Japan’s consumer price index has provided some support to the Japanese yen (JPY) and weighed on AUD/JPY. Investors will get more clues from Australia’s monthly consumer price index next week. AUD/JPY is currently trading around 98.98, down 0.63%.
The latest data released by the Statistics Bureau of Japan on Friday showed that Japan’s annual inflation rate climbed to 2.8% in February from 2.2% in January. The data was still well above the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) 2% target, boosting the yen’s exchange rate against the Australian dollar on Friday. Elsewhere, core inflation, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, rose to an annual rate of 2.8% from 2.0% last month, in line with market expectations.
In the Australian dollar, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Thursday that the number of new jobs in Australia increased to 11.65 thousand in February from 15.3 thousand in the previous month. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 3.7% in February from 4.1% in January, higher than market expectations of 4.0%.
