HONG KONG, May 10 Reuters The Australian dollar hit its lowest level in nearly two years against the dollar on Tuesday and other commodity currencies also fell, hurt by fears of slowing global economic growth.

The Aussie dollar dropped as low as 0.6908, its weakest since July 2020, having fallen 1.7 overnight.

The Aussie is primarily a risk sensitive currency and in recent days the market has become more concerned about the global growth outlook, with risk aversion also seen in the big declines in equity markets around the globe. Against that backdrop its not surprising to see it struggling, said Rodrigo Catril a currency strategist at NAB.

He said also that from a technical perspective, the Aussie39;s drop below a level just above 0.70 left it vulnerable.

It was last a little firmer at 0.6973, as risk sentiment improved a little in afternoon Asian trade, which also caused the euro to gain 0.2 on the dollar to 1.0575, and sterling to rise 0.34 to 1.2375.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six peers dropped nearly 0.2 to 103.57, having risen as high as 104.19 overnight, a fresh 20year peak.

However, We don39;t see the small rebound that we39;ve seen in the past couple of hours as encouraging. It39;s really more markets taking a breather from the big declines in recent days, than a big change in fundamentals suggesting we are out of the woods, said Catril.

Global share markets took a battering on Monday with the Nasdaq dropping more than 4 in a…