AUD/USD continues to push lower toward multi-month lows near 0.7400
- AUD/USD remains on the back foot in the American session.
- US Dollar Index regains traction following Wednesday's decline.
- Uninspiring labour market report from Australia weighed on AUD.
The AUD/USD pair came under renewed bearish pressure during the American trading hours and was last seen trading at 0.7417, losing 0.85% on a daily basis. With a drop below 0.7109, AUD/USD will renew its lowest level since December.
DXY climbs above 92.60
Earlier in the day, the data from Australia showed that the Unemployment Rate declined to 4.9% in June from 5.1%. Although this reading came in much better than the market expectation of 5.5%, the underlying details of the jobs report painted a gloomy picture. The Employment Change arrived at 29.1K following May's increase of 115.2K and missed analysts' estimate of 30K. Meanwhile, Consumer Inflation Expectations declined to 3.7% from 4.4%.
In the second half of the day, the broad-based USD strength caused AUD/USD to extend its daily slide. The US Dollar Index, which lost 0.44% on FOMC Chairman Jerome Powell's dovish remarks on Wednesday, is currently rising 0.32% at 92.67.
The US Department of Labor reported that Initial Jobless Claims declined to 360K in the week ending July 10. Other data from the US revealed that the NY Empire State Manufacturing Index improved to 43 in July from 17.4 in June and the Philly Fed Manufacturing Index fell to 21.9 from 30.7. Finally, Industrial Production expanded by 0.7% in June, compared to the market expectation of 0.4%.
There won't be any high-tier data releases from Australia on Friday and the USD's market valuation is likely to continue to drive AUD/USD's action.
Technical levels to watch for
Author
Eren Sengezer
FXStreet
As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.
