After drifting on not-so-good employment figures, a relatively calm week expects the Aussie. The meeting minutes are in the limelight. Here’s an outlook for the Australian events and an updated technical analysis for AUD/USD.
In addition to the drop in jobs, also home loans disappointed in Australia with a sharp fall. Nevertheless, AUD/USD didn’t lose parity. Will it move higher now? Let’s start:
AUD/USD daily chart with support and resistance lines on it. Click to enlarge:
- Guy Debelle talks: Monday, 9:05. The assistant governor of the RBA will attend a conference in Sydney and is likely to speak his mind about the situation of the economy following the recent mediocre employment numbers and perhaps also relate to monetary policy. He usually moves the Aussie.
- Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes: Tuesday, 00:30. The statement attached to the last rate decision was rather bullish – Glenn Stevens and his team were pretty optimistic about the economy. We’ll now get much more information and perhaps some hint about when the rate hike is due.
- New Motor Vehicle Sales: Tuesday, 00:30. Sales of cars, trucks and other vehicles serve as an excellent gauge for the whole economy. A rise is expected after last month’s drop.
- MI Leading Index: Tuesday, 23:30. The Melbourne Institute provides a comprehensive index for the economy, based on 9 economic indicators. While most of them have already been released, this figure still tends to rock the Aussie.
- Housing Starts: Wednesday, 00:30. This is a rather late figure, published almost a full quarter after the relevant quarter ended. Nevertheless, its wide scope provides volatility. After a sharp drop of 13.2% in Q3, a much smaller drop is now predicted.
- RBA Bulletin: Friday, 00:30. The RBA also closed the week with a big load of speeches, articles and tables that show how the bank sees the economy.
* All times are GMT.
AUD/USD Technical Analysis
Choppy trading characterized the Aussie’s trading. After a failed attempt to break above 1.0180 (discussed last week) the Aussie drifted lower and even temporarily fell below parity. It then recovered in the late hours of Friday and eventually closed at 1.0115.
Looking down, the first line of support is at 1.0080. While it wasn’t so important now, it’s still significant. The distinctive line of AUD/USD parity is the next support line returned to play a major role now.
Below, 0.9940 is close to parity and is another support line. It was a bottom in recent weeks. 0.98, the lowest level in 2011 so far. It prevented further falls.
Further below, we find the 0.9724 line, that was a tough line beforehand and is minor support now. Even lower, 0.9660 worked in both directions, and especially as a cushion back in October. The last line below is 0.9540 which was the bottom in November and also in September serves as important support.
Looking up, 1.0180 is a very tough line, that proved its strength just now. It first capped the pair in November. It’s followed by the floating era peak of 1.0254, a line reached only in the days of thin trading in December 2010. Beyond this line we find uncharted territory.
I remain bullish on AUD/USD.
Despite the weak employment figures, the Australian economy is still doing well and enjoying the Chinese growth.
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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