"The bottom line is I think the currency market reacted the wrong way yesterday and missed the shift toward dovishness on the part of the RBA," Mr Oliver said. "Today has corrected that and then done some more."

But there is some disagreement about what is likely to happen next.

Commonwealth Bank's chief currency strategist, Richard Grace, said he was unsurprised by the drop in the Aussie and expected the local currency to slide further.

"If they didn't move to a more evenly balanced risk assessment profile it would look a bit odd, given the way the data has changed both domestically and globally," Mr Grace said.

"I would expect over the next 24 hours or so a 1.5 per cent decline would not be unusual on this change to forward guidance and I wouldn't see that as a large move down in the Australian dollar."

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Ray Attrill, head of foreign exchange strategy at National Australia Bank, said he thought the market had overreacted to Dr Lowe's speech.

"The size of the drop to me looks a little bit excessive insofar as the RBA hasn't put the market firmly on the scent of a rate cut," Mr Attrill said. "In fact some of the adjectives that [Governor Lowe] used in the Q&A suggest to me they are still perhaps marginally more inclined to think that the next move in rates will be up rather than down, even though he has described it as balanced."

Mr Attrill said the last time the RBA had shifted its guidance to suggest it would cut rates in early February 2016 the dollar had only dropped about a cent. By contrast, Mr Attrill emphasised Dr Lowe's speech only suggested a shift to neutral, suggesting the Aussie was unlikely to fall further.