If you’re heading down under, look North!

Friday, November 13th 2009, 09: 1200 GMT

The AUD has touched a new 15 month high of 0.9370 against the USD as it gained against all its major counterparts this week. The uptrend looks intact for the next week as well. The strength is mainly on account of better than expected employment data and firming commodity prices.

The pair has already crossed the key resistance area of 0.9280 and is at this time, trading at 0.9289. Although upside is limited, the pair appears to be in a solid uptrend and may test the psychological level of 0.9500 in the coming week; traders hold a tight stop loss of 0.9455. Daily oscillators indicate bullishness and the Bollinger bands are indicating a squeeze suggesting a possible breakout in the near term; expect bulls to take the pair to test new highs.

The pair is currently trading above its 14 day EMA with the RSI sloping upwards suggesting strong upward bias for the pair. Overall bearishness in the US accompanied by higher gold prices resulting in depreciation of the USD is another major cause for the pair moving upwards.

On the fundamental side of things, Australia added 24,500 jobs in the month of October, contrary to consensus estimates which suggested a decline of 10,000. This has added to speculation that Reserve Bank of Australia will raise benchmark interest rates next month by at least 25 basis points for the third month running.

USD/AUD