AUD/JPY trims a part of intraday gains to 94.00 neighbourhood, still up over 0.25% for the day

The AUD/JPY cross attracts some buying during the Asian session on Friday and stalls a three-day-old downtrend from the 95.80-95.85 resistance zone. Spot prices, however, retreat a few pips from the daily peak and currently trade around the 93.65 region, up less than 0.30% for the day.

A generally positive tone around the US equity futures is seen undermining the safe-haven Japanese Yen (JPY) and turning out to be a key factor lending some support to the AUD/JPY cross. The risk-sensitive Australian Dollar (AUD) further draws support from the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) hawkish quarterly Monetary Policy Statement (MPS), indicating that interest rates may still need to go higher. Adding to this, China’s Commerce Ministry announced on Friday that the country will lift the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariff on barley imports from Australia, which provides an additional lift to the Aussie.

The RBA, meanwhile, remain concerned about the worsening economic conditions and slashed its short-term growth forecasts. The central bank now expects the domestic economy to grow by just 0.9% by the end of the year or the slowest pace since 1992. This, in turn, holds back bulls from placing aggressive bets around the AUD/JPY cross. Apart from this, the Bank of Japan's (BoJ) intervention for the second time this week on Thursday to cool the speed of the rise in the 10-year Japanese Government Bond (JGB) yield, which shot to its highest since April 2014 on Thursday, contributes to capping the upside, at least for now.

The AUD/JPY cross fails just ahead of the 94.00 round-figure mark, which should now act as a pivotal point for intraday traders. Spot prices, however, manage to hold comfortably above last week's swing low, around the very important 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA). Bearish traders need to wait for a convincing break below a technically significant MA before positioning for the resumption of the recent pullback from the YTD peak, around the 97.65 region touched in June. Nevertheless, the cross, at current levels, remains on track to register modest losses for the second successive week.

Technical levels to watch