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AUD/USD Forecast

AUD/USD Outlook – May 10-14

The Australian dollar is expecting another volatile week: job figures and the annual budget release stand out. Will the Aussie recover? Here’s an outlook for this week’s events and an updated technical analysis for AUD/USD.

AUD/USD chart with support and resistance lines marked. Click to enlarge:

aud usd forecast

Similar to the fifth rate hike, also the past week’s sixth rate hike surprised the markets, but it wasn’t enough. Note this week’s special annual event – the budget release. Let’s start:

  1. ANZ Job Advertisements: Published on Monday at 1:30 GMT. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group provides a sneak peak towards the official employment figures published later in the week. After a huge leap of 19% in the number of advertised jobs, a smaller rise of 1.8% was seen.
  2. NAB Business Confidence: Published on Tuesday at 1:30 GMT. National Australia Bank has shows a drop last month – from 19 to 16, but it’s still positive, showing improving conditions, as it did in the past 10 months. A small rise back up can be expected now.
  3. Annual Budget Release: Published on Tuesday at 9:30 GMT. The Australian Treasury will present the budget to the parliament and will lay out the economic prospects for the next year. This event is likely to rock the Aussie, as well as the kiwi. Also note inflation projections, which impact the interest rates.
  4. Home Loans: Published on Wednesday at 1:30 GMT. The housing sector has shown signs of weakness lately. The number of loans for homes fell in the past 5 months. Last month’s fall was relatively small – 1.8%, and a drop of 2.9% is now expected.
  5. Employment data: Published on Thursday at 1:30 GMT. This is the key event. The employment figures should justify the recent, sixth, rate hike. Last month saw a rather moderate rise in jobs – 20K, within expectations. A stronger rise is predicted this time. The Australian unemployment rate, that remained at 5.3%, should drop to 5.2% this time.

AUD/USD Technical Analysis

Staying in the higher 0.9220 to 0.9327 range was temporary. AUD/USD fell quickly, stopped to rest above 0.90 and then collapsed to find support at 0.88 before partially recovering to 0.8880.

Note that after this volatile week, many lines have changed from last week’s outlook. The Aussie now trades between 0.88, which was a swing low a few months ago and also in the past week, and 0.90, which provided support recently.

Looking down, the next line of significant support is at 0.8567. This is a place where the Aussie stopped to rest before climbing up in October 2009, and also a swing low in February. There’s a very minor support line at 0.8735 as well.

Below, 0.8340 is the next line of support, but it’s too far off now. The Aussie struggle around this line last summer.

Looking up, 0.9135 now provides minor resistance. This line supported the Aussie recently. Higher, 0.9220 is another line of resistance, also switching its role.

Even higher, 0.9327, which was a strong barrier many times in recent months, was breached in the past weeks, but continues to be of significance.

I remain bullish on AUD/USD.

Despite being carried away by the dollar strength, the Aussie’s fundamentals, including the sixth rate hike and the strong job market, should help it outperform European currencies.

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Yohay Elam

Yohay Elam

Yohay Elam: Founder, Writer and Editor I have been into forex trading for over 5 years, and I share the experience that I have and the knowledge that I've accumulated. After taking a short course about forex. Like many forex traders, I've earned a significant share of my knowledge the hard way. Macroeconomics, the impact of news on the ever-moving currency markets and trading psychology have always fascinated me. Before founding Forex Crunch, I've worked as a programmer in various hi-tech companies. I have a B. Sc. in Computer Science from Ben Gurion University. Given this background, forex software has a relatively bigger share in the posts.