The Australian dollar held its recent gains around $0.684, trading near a sixteen-month high, as strong jobs data boosted expectations of a near-term rate hike, while upbeat PMI figures further supported sentiment. Flash data showed the composite PMI rose to 55.5 in January, its sixteenth straight month of expansion and the strongest since April 2022. The improvement reflected faster growth in both major sectors, with factory activity growing for a third month and services PMI seeing its sharpest rise since early 2022. Additionally, recent data showed the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell in December to a seven-month low. Along with sticky inflation and increasingly hawkish signals from the Reserve Bank, this has boosted bets for rate hikes. Swaps now price a 55.7% chance of a rate increase in February, up from 26.5% before the data, with over 80% odds for a hike by May. The focus now turns to next week’s quarterly inflation data, the central bank’s preferred measure of price growth.