Australian Dollar: returns since 1971

The Australian dollar, the "Aussie," is a commodity currency and a common proxy for Asian demand, and our series tracks the value of one Australian dollar in U.S. dollars since 1971. It has ranged from above $1.10 to below $0.60, rising when raw materials and Chinese growth ran hot and falling when they cooled.

One honesty note: this is the exchange rate against the U.S. dollar (FRED H.10), not a return. Holding cash earns no interest, so the line above is currency movement and not a yield, and the comparison against U.S. inflation (CPI) shows what a dollar holder actually kept in real terms.

Iron ore set record prices from 2011 to 2013, and Australia's mining investment ran flat out through those years to feed Chinese steel mills. The turn came around 2014, when a wave of new mine supply landed just as that investment boom rolled over, sending iron-ore prices down sharply and taking the resource cycle with it well before interest rates moved. The year-by-year table below pairs those turns with a start date, so you can read the line through the boom and the slide that followed rather than as one steady trend.

Descriptive, educational content computed from official public data. Not investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results.