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AUD/USD Forecast

Australian Dollar Forecast – December 14-18

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The Australian dollar puts up a fight to the recent greenback’s strength. The upcoming week contains two major events: GDP for the third quarter and the meeting minutes of the last rate decision, that will give us a hint about another possible rate hike. Here’s an outlook for the Australian dollar, and an updated technical analysis for AUD/USD.

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

Aussie forecast

Australia’s employment numbers exceed expectations over and over again. Australia enjoys China’s strength, which was also seen recently. We don’t have too many figures this week, but they are all quite significant. Le’ts review the events. The technical analysis will follow:

  1. Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes: The Reserve Bank of Australia raised the interest rate to 3.75% in their last meeting. This was the third consecutive rate hike, and probably not the last. The meeting minutes from this meeting are published on Tuesday at 00:30 GMT, and are expected to hint about another rate hike. The aforementioned employment figures support this.
  2. Housing Starts: This is a quarterly figure that gives a big picture of the housing sector. In Q2, housing starts disappointed by falling in a scale of 3.7%. This time, in Q3, housing starts are expected to align with the rest of the economy, and rise by 6.1%. Published on Tuesday at 00:30 GMT, and somewhat overshadowed by the meeting minutes.
  3. MI Leading Index: The Melbourne Institute publishes this composite index on Tuesday at 23:30 GMT. Most of the nine indicators that consist of this number have already been published, but is still important. After neat rises in previous months, this index edged up by only 0.4% last time. A stronger rise is expected this time.
  4. GDP: Australia has avoided an official recession in the current global crisis. The economy contracted in only one quarter, Q4 of 2008. Since then, it posted growth. After growing by 0.4%, the Australian Gross Domestic Product is expected to rise by 0.4% this time. This major release is due on Wednesday at 00:30 GMT.
  5. Ric Battellino talks: RBA Deputy Governor Ric Battellino makes many public appearances and impacts the Aussie. His general attitude is optimistic – expressing confidence of long term growth. He’ll make a public appearance on Wednesday at 1:15 in Sydney, and can shake the Aussie as well.
  6. RBA Monthly Bulletin: The RBA completes its current round of official releases with this collection of articles and statistics. This could give more information about the central bank’s view towards the economy and future policy. Published on Thursday at 00:30 GMT.

AUD/USD Technical Analysis

The Aussie traded lower during most of the week, bottoming out above 0.90. It later rose and touched 0.92 before closing at 0.9125.

Initial and minor support exists at 0.9090, a line that has returned to the chart after being absent from last week’s outlook. This line was strongly broken on Thursday. The Aussie didn’t go below since then.

More significant support is at 0.98950, a line that was tested from both directions. Even lower, 0.85 is an area that the Aussie had a hard to to breach during August, and serves as a far support line.

Looking up, 0.9210 was tested this week once again, making it stronger. Further above, 0.9322 was tested 3 times in the past and also serves as major resistance. Even higher, the YTD high of 0.94 is the next line of resistance.

I remain bullish on the Aussie.

My bulls were fueled by the employment improvement, and I believe that they’ll get a boost from the GDP and a growing consensus of another rate hike.

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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.