The Aussie had a bad start to the year, losing parity. The upcoming week is very busy, with employment figures being the highlight. Here’s an outlook for the Australian events, and an updated technical analysis for AUD/USD.
Floods in Queensland which will have a deep economic impact, falling commodity prices and also the strength in the US dollar, all hurt the Australian dollar. Will this trend continue, or was it a temporary correction? Let’s start
AUD/USD daily chart with support and resistance lines marked. Click to enlarge:
- AIG Construction Index: Publication time unknown at the moment. Delayed from last week. Australia Industry Group has shown that the construction sector is squeezing – teh score has been under 50 points. It’s expected to improve from last month’s poor 42.2 points.
- ANZ Job Advertisements: Monday, 00:30. This unofficial employment gauge is released before the official figure, and tends to be a good indicator for it, therefore it rocks the Aussie. Last month saw a nice rise of 2.9% in advertisements, and this was later reflected in the official number. A smaller rise is expected now.
- Retail Sales: Monday, 00:30. Somewhat overshadowed by ANZ, this important consumer indicator disappointed with a 1.1% drop last time. A rise of 0.3% is now expected, as Australian consumers made their Christmas shopping.
- Trade Balance: Tuesday, 00:30. Australia enjoys a nice surplus in its trade balance, mainly due to commodity exports to China. The surplus is now expected to shrink from 2.63 to 2.05 billion, still a good figure.
- Chinese Trade Balance: Tuesday. All the world is watching the Chinese huge surplus and demands that Chinese will let its currency, the yuan, to revalue. The surplus remained huge last month, 22.9 billion, and is now predicted to remain above 20 billion. A higher figure is good for Australia, as it is very dependent on Chinese strength.
- Home Loans: Wednesday, 00:30. This important housing sector figure has been more stable than other ones in Australia, and has shown steady growth in the past four months. But now, after a 1.9% rise, a drop of 0.9% is predicted.
- Employment data: Thursday, 00:30. This all-important indicator was excellent last month – a gain of 54.6K jobs was far better than expected, and also the unemployment rate was better than expected. Australia is expected to gain “only” 25.3K jobs this time, still good, while the unemployment rate is likely to drop from 5.2% to 5.1%. The Aussie will rock on any result.
AUD/USD Technical Analysis
The slide of the Australian dollar characterized in the past week, with a small struggle around parity. AUD/USD finally found support around the 0.9915 line (mentioned last week) before closing at 0.9950.
Looking up, the obvious line of parity is now a resistance line. Above, 1.0080 is the next line of resistance after working as support while the Aussie traded (twice) at a higher range.
1.0180, which was the previous peak in November is ahead on the road. It also temporarily held the Aussie before the big fall in the past week. The multi-year high of 1.0254 is the last line.
Looking down, 0.9915 proved to be a strong line of support. It was a peak on the way up. Below, 0.9840 is a minor line.
Stronger support is found at 0.9724, which was a bottom a few weeks ago. 0.9660 is another minor line, and 0.9540 is already a very strong line – it’s the lowest level in 3 months.
Even lower, 0.9465 was a stepping stone on the way up, and is now support. It’s followed by 0.9327, a historic line.
I turn bullish on AUD/USD.
The Aussie had a hangover from New Year’s eve with the Chinese report on slower growth. After these big losses, I believe that the job figures will push it higher.
Further reading:
- For a broad view of all the week’s major events worldwide, read the USD outlook.
- For EUR/USD, check out the Euro/Dollar forecast.
- For the Japanese yen, read the USD/JPY forecast.
- For GBP/USD (cable), look into the British Pound forecast.
- For the New Zealand dollar (kiwi), read the NZD forecast.
- For USD/CAD (loonie), check out the Canadian dollar.
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