AUD/USD: Bearish impulsive remains intact above 0.7300 ahead of Aussie Retail Sales

• AUD/USD struggles to defend corrective pullback from yearly bottom.
• Bears take a breather amid chatters over US Infrastructure bill, mixed virus updates.
• Local lockdowns could negatively impact Aussie Retail Sales, Westpac Leading Index for June.
• Qualitative catalysts remain crucial for near-term direction.

AUD/USD fails to overcome yearly low of 0.7299, currently around 0.7330 amid early Wednesday morning in Asia. The Delta covid variant woes and reflation fears keep weighing the market sentiment, despite mild consolidative moves in the US session amid stimulus concerns.

Delta covid strain defends policy doves…

With the virus variant spreading faster and challenging previous concerns over policy tightening, easy money is likely to stay here for long, which in turn should have offered an invisible hand to the market’s cautious optimism amid “same old”.

Also on the risk-positive side could be comments from US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who said, per Reuters, “Efforts to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill in the Senate would not be slowed down if Democrats lost a procedural vote to begin debate on Wednesday.”

Meanwhile, South Australia joined the league of New South Wales and Victoria to be under the local lockdowns even as Aussie Health Minister Greg Hunt tweeted the arrival of one million Pfizer vaccines for Australians per week. On the same line, the UK’s unlock remains highly criticized as PM himself got in touch with an infected person, resulting in isolation, whereas the national daily numbers stay around early 2021 highs.

It should be noted that the escalation over the US-China tussles and mixed data from the US, recently soft housing figures, play a distant role. Also, RBA Minutes and the People's Bank of China's (PBOC) status-quo offered no motivation to AUD/USD traders the previous day.

Amid these plays, Wall Street benchmarks pared the previous day’s heavy losses and the US 10-year Treasury yields also rose, providing a bounce off multi-day low to the AUD/USD prices. However, the Aussie pair’s further advances depend upon Australia’s preliminary readings of June month’s Retail Sales, expected -0.5% versus +0.4% MoM prior, as well as Westpac Leading Index for June, -0.06% previous readouts.

While expected weakness in the economy may keep AUD/USD sellers hopeful, any improvement in the covid conditions and US stimulus talks may offer breathing space to the pair sellers.

Technical analysis

AUD/USD bears need a daily closing below 0.7340, comprising tops marked in September–November 2020 to October 2020 high near 0.7245. On the contrary, recovery moves require 0.7410-15 breakout, including late 2020 peak and early July 2021 low, to be considered promising.