- AUD/USD came under renewed bearish pressure after US data.
- US Dollar Index continues to push higher toward 91.00.
- Retail Sales in US rose sharply in January.
The AUD/USD pair extended its daily slide in the early American session and touched its lowest level in five days at 0.7726. As of writing, the pair was down 0.35% on a daily basis at 0.7730.
USD demand picks up after US data
The data published by the US Census Bureau showed on Wednesday that Retail Sales in January increased by 5.3% to $568.2 billion. With this print surpassing analysts’ estimate for an increase of 1% by a wide margin, the US Dollar Index edged higher and was last seen gaining 0.55% on the day at 91.00.
Other data from the US revealed that the Core Producer Price Index (PPI) in January jumped to its highest level since October 2019 at 2% on a yearly basis.
Later in the session, the US Federal Reserve will release the Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization figures. More importantly, the FOMC’s February meeting minutes will be published at 1900 GMT.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Futures are down 0.25% on the day despite the upbeat data, suggesting that the greenback is likely to preserve its strength with US stocks opening in the negative territory.
On Thursday, the labour market report from Australia will be looked upon for fresh impetus. Markets expect the Unemployment Rate to tick down to 6.5% in January and a better-than-expected reading could help the AUD show some resilience against its American counterpart.
Technical levels to watch for
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