Aussie dollar plunge expected to continue

Tokyo

NOT since 2009 has Australia's dollar tumbled so far in the first month of the year. And the world's biggest foreign-exchange trader says the pain is far from over.

After tumbling 5.1 per cent in January, the so-called Aussie will fall an additional 3.6 per cent in three months to 75 US cents, Citigroup Inc forecasts.

Money-market traders give better- than-even odds that the Reserve Bank of Australia will cut interest rates on Tuesday to stimulate an economy ravaged by the commodities slump, damping the appeal of the nation's financial assets to global investors.

"The market is increasingly pessimistic on the RBA," Todd Elmer, a strategist at Citigroup in Singapore, said on …