AUD/USD analysis: jobs' creation expected to have moderated in July

Valeria Bednarik FXStreet

AUD/USD Current price: 0.7234

Australian employment data could boost the Aussie only temporarily.
Sell-off in base metals likely to weigh more on AUD's direction.

The AUD/USD pair traded as low as 0.7202 to peak in the US afternoon at 0.7247 to settle around 0.7230. The Aussie was dragged lower by commodities, with gold prices falling to fresh yearly lows and oil prices to fresh 2-month lows. European equities also sell-off, while US ones settled well into the red, albeit having bounced modestly during US trading hours. Australia will release its July employment data during the upcoming session, with the economy expected to have added 15.0K new jobs after adding 50.9K in June. The unemployment rate is seen steady at 5.4%. The moderate expectations are the result of different reports released lately, one indicating that wages' growth remained near record lows, and the ANZ's Job Ads index released early August, which showed that job advertisements rose by 1.5% after decreasing 1.7% in the previous month. This last also indicate that average monthly growth in jobs´ ads slowed from 0.8% in Q1 to 0.2% in the three months to June. Better-than-expected figures could boost the Aussie but only temporarily, as the persistent slump in high-yielding assets will weigh more. In the 4 hours chart, the latest recovery was barely enough to leave technical indicators flat well into negative territory, while the price remains far below all of its moving averages, with the 20 SMA maintaining its strong downward slope. A steeper decline should be expected on a break below 0.7190 with scope then to extend its decline toward the 0.7150/60 region, where the pair has relevant monthly lows from 2016.

Support levels: 0.7190 0.7155 0.7110

Resistance levels: 0.7265 0.7300 0.7330

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Author

Valeria Bednarik

FXStreet

Valeria Bednarik was born and lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her passion for math and numbers pushed her into studying economics in her younger years.

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