Identifying patterns in currency markets is like discovering the Virgin Mary in your Coco Pops. However compelling the analysis, you risk looking like a crackpot when the elements shift again. Since commodities came off the boil, however, there has been one screamingly obvious trade: sell the Aussie dollar. An economy dependent on flogging minerals to a resources-sated world is bound to suffer. High commodity prices over the past six years have given Australia an unearned pay rise. On top of that, the unwinding global carry trade in peripheral currencies has beaten the dollar lower. On a trade-weighted basis, the Aussie dollar is down about 25 per cent from its peak in July.

On the grounds that there surely can’t be much punishment to come, the Reserve Bank of Australia is now cutting interest rates savagely. Tuesday’s 75 basis point cut to 5.25 per cent – deeper than expected – brings the tally to 200bps off the target rate since the beginning of September, and amounts to the most aggressive round of rate cuts since the economy was last in recession in the early 1990s.