AUD/USD clings to gains near multi-week tops, just below 0.6900 handle

The AUD/USD pair held on to its strong intraday gains through the early European session on Thursday and is currently placed at multi-week tops, around the 0.6885 region.
 
After the previous session's late pullback, the pair managed to catch some fresh bids on Thursday and remained well supported by encouraging US-China trade developments. The US President Donald Trump announced to delay the decision to impose an extra 5% tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods by two weeks to Oct. 15, which eventually underpinned the China-proxy Australian Dollar.

US-China trade optimism continues to underpin

The move came after China on Wednesday offered to buy more US agricultural products and continued boosting the global risk sentiment, which was evident from a bullish trading sentiment around equity markets and further benefitted perceived riskier currencies - like the Aussie.
 
Meanwhile, the risk-on mood allowed the US Treasury bond yields to extend its recent positive momentum, pushing the US 10-year yield to one-month highs, which extended some support to the US Dollar and turned out to be the only factor keeping a lid on any strong follow-through up-move, at least for the time being.
 
It will now be interesting to see if the pair is able to capitalize on the momentum or runs into some fresh supply at higher levels as investors start repositioning for Thursday’s ECB monetary policy decision. This coupled with the release of the US consumer inflation figures will influence the USD price dynamics and contribute toward producing some meaningful trading opportunities.

Technical levels to watch