AUD/USD strapped to 0.7200 with little hope on the horizon

• Macro data continues to point the Aussie’s nose into the low end.
• Trade war fears represent a continuous bearish presence for the AUD/USD pairing.
• Slumping growth figures from both home and abroad are sinking the AUD, with China’s  current  slowdown impeding the Aussie.

AUD/USD continues to skid across the rails at the key 0.7200 handle, constrained by the 50-day simple moving average on the charts while broader market sentiment sees the Aussie as the popular victim of choice to sell when US-China trade tensions make themselves visible.

Australian domestic economic data continues to disappoint across the board, and the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) rising concerns with the wobbly Aussie housing market are proving to be well-founded after Tuesday’s Housing Price miss, steepening a contraction from the previous quarter’s -0.7% and slipping to -2.5% heading into the year’s end. With Australia’s domestic engine closely tied to China’s demand for goods, the US-China trade war also poses a significant risk, and steadily-deflating trade balance, import, and export datasets from China are cause for fear for Aussie traders as well, as a contracting Chinese economy threatens to topple Australia’s already-weak growth figures.  

Data for the rest of this week remains thin except for a mid-tier RBA Bulletin due early on Thursday, but with trade war headlines once again making their way across the wires on a daily basis, the AUD can be expected to continue facing bearish headwinds for the immediate future, unless a broadbase correction in the greenback sees the Aussie pick up some charity-bidding in the larger FX space.

AUD/USD Technical Levels