AUD/USD eyes to regain 0.7350 as Ukraine crisis propels commodities on supply crunch fears
|- AUD/USD picks up bids to refresh intraday top, reverses previous day’s pullback from four-month high.
- Australia’s NAB Business Confidence, Business Conditions improved in February.
- Market sentiment remains sour, gold, oil stay firmer around multi-year high, Nickel refreshes record top.
- Speech from RBA Governor Orr may offer intermediate clues amid the push to release brakes on rate-hike.
AUD/USD refreshes intraday high to 0.7334, up 0.18% on a day as it pares the week-start losses from multi-day high during Tuesday’s Asian session. The Aussie pair’s latest rebound could be linked to the firmer commodity prices, as well as recently upbeat sentiment data from home.
National Australia Bank (NAB) released February’s Business Confidence and Business Conditions data before a few minutes and offered recent strength to the AUD/USD prices. “Tuesday's survey from National Australia Bank (NAB) showed its index of business conditions rose 7 points to +9 in February, reversing all of January's drop. The index of confidence climbed 9 points to +13, well above December's low of -12,” said Reuters.
It’s worth noting that the escalating fears of a devastating impact on the global supply chain, due to the Ukraine-Russia stand-off recently propelled commodities and Antipodeans. That said, the gold prices rallied to a 19-month high whereas WTI crude oil rallied to the levels last seen during 2008 the previous day. Also cheering the supply fears are the nickel buyers as the metal refreshed an all-time high of around $50,550 on the London Metal Exchange (LME).
As per the latest developments, the UK and the EU’s resistance to fully ban the oil imports from Russia, as widely pushed by the US, joins the World Bank’s (WB) humanitarian aid to Kyiv to ease the previous risk-off mood. However, headlines from Reuters indicate no major progress in the peace talks between Ukraine and Russia even as the human corridor is up for a restart.
Amid these plays, the US 10-year Treasury yields extend the previous day’s rebound from two-month to 1.77% up 2.5 basis points at the latest. However, Japan’s Nikkei 225 drops more than 1.0% by the press time whereas the S&P 500 Futures decline 0.30% at the latest.
Moving on, risk catalysts are likely to keep the driver’s seat but early Wednesday’s speech from Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Governor Philip Lowe will be eyed closely amid a broad push to dump the “wait-and-watch” approach of the Aussie central bank.
Technical analysis
AUD/USD rebounds from the 200-DMA level of 0.7320 to again aim for a one-year-old downward sloping trend line, close to 0.7440 by the press time.
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