- AUD/NZD is currently around 1.0380 during the Asian morning session on Friday’s.
- The pair struggles recently as disappointments from Australia confront bit less worrisome figures from New Zealand.
- Traders await trade balance details from China to determine immediate market direction amid optimism surrounding the US-China trade deal.
AUD/NZD trades near 1.0380 ahead of China’s monthly trade balance on Friday morning. Having dropped to the lowest since January 03 on Wednesday, the quote is consolidating off-late as recent data from Australia and New Zealand have been mixed. In addition to Chinese data, developments surrounding the US-China negotiation to avoid further trade disputes also become important to watch.
Wednesday’s disappointing Australian growth figures and dovish comments from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Governor highlighted the rate-cut chances and dragged the AUD/NZD pair downwards.
Though, soft prints of Australian retail sales on Thursday confronted upbeat trade balance to limit further Aussie weakness. On the other hand, Friday’s better than earlier -1.6% growth of New Zealand Q4 2018 manufacturing sales volume at 2.0% couldn’t please Kiwi traders much as traders await China trade balance.
The monthly China trade balance details generally come in around 03:00 GMT while official sources make it tentative prior to release. The February numbers are likely to provide an additional burden on antipodeans as trade balance USD and exports may easily counter small expected increase in imports. The trade balance (USD) may drop to $26.38 billion against $39.16 billion prior while export growth (YoY) may shrink to -4.8% from +9.1%. Also, imports can rise a bit to -1.4% from -1.5%.
At the US-China trade front, the latest news is likely supporting a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies as the US President Donald Trump is pushing the White House members toward a deal. However, China is skeptical about the outcome as it fears Trump’s last-moment U-turn.
AUD/NZD Technical Analysis
AUD/NZD needs to provide a daily close less than 1.0360 in order to visit January 2017 lows near 1.0320 and then drift lower towards 1.03000 support.
On the upside, six-week-old descending trend-line at 1.0420 acts as immediate resistance for the pair, a break of which can escalate its recovery to 1.0470 and 1.0500 levels.
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