AUD/USD maintains range after jobs report, Fed

The Australian economy gained 17.9K jobs, slightly better than 15K expected, but basically in line with early predictions and not enough to rock the boat too much. The unemployment rate did not budge from 5.7% as widely expected. Perhaps weighing on the moderate beat on jobs, we have somewhat disappointing details: full time jobs were  lost while part time jobs were gained.

All in all, nothing to rock the boat here. Also in the US, things were quite stable with the Fed decision: the dovish central bank remained true to its word and did not raise rates. They also “smoothed out” predictions for the future: nothing that came as a shocker but certainly cautious words.

For AUD/USD, this means ongoing range trading between 0.7375 to 0.7440, the well known range that worked well for a long time. Further resistance awaits at 0.75 while support is at 0.73.

Here is the AUD/USD chart:

The Brexit debate in the UK is weighing indirectly on the Aussie: a growing probability of a UK exit from the EU triggers safe haven flows and a “risk off” atmosphere that does not contribute to Aussie flows. However,  most of the storm is in the old continent and not in Australian.