AUD/USD hits the new week on a weak note

The AUD/USD heads into the new week on the downside, opening at 0.7714 and moving quietly, hanging by a thread near 2018's lowest prices so far.

The Aussie took a beating to end last week, declining 2.6% percent from Wednesday's high as risk aversion continues to shake out markets. Trump's White House never fails to deliver with the administration dumping or pushing out key members becoming the norm last week. Adding to the fire over the weekend, Trump's sent out tweets attempting to undermine the validity of memos on conversations between himself and recently-ousted FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. Trump's railing against McCabe's potential memos come after reports suggest that McCabe has turned over his recordings of conversations between himself and President Trump to the Mueller special investigation into the collusion allegations between Russia and the Trump election campaign.

Further taking risk appetite lower is the Japanese land scandal that came to a head last week. Recent polling in Japan suggests that most people hold the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, personally responsible for the attempted cover-up, and the cronyism allegations are driving Abe's approval ratings to record lows, and many people have begun calling for him and his Finance Minister, Taro Aso, who was also involved in the scandal, to step down.

The macro calendar for the Aussie is a light showing this week, though Tuesday will be seeing the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) Meeting Minutes from the interest rate decision two weeks ago. The report will contain the central bank's internal conversations and material discussion regarding interest rates and how they are making their decisions about interest rates. Despite the lack of movement in the Aussie rate recently, traders will be looking for a bullish tone from some of the RBA's key members in order to begin estimating a lift in the key rate. With economic data for the country mixed and a possible economic slowdown on the horizon, the RBA is widely expected to sit on the sidelines for the rest of the year. The RBA Meeting minutes will drop at 01:30 GMT on Tuesday.

AUD/USD Technicals

As FXStreet's own Valeria Bednarik notes, "The daily chart shows that the pair closed below the 61.8% retracement of the December/January rally at 0.7740, now the immediate support. Technical indicators in the mentioned chart entered bearish territory with the RSI heading firmly south around 35, as the pair broke below all of its moving averages, all of which favors additional declines as long as the price holds below the mentioned 0.7740 level. Shorter term, and according to the 4 hours chart, the pair is also biased lower, as technical indicators barely pared their declines within oversold territory, while the pair settled far below its moving averages, with the 20 SMA heading south almost vertically around 0.7840."

Support levels: 0.7700 0.7665 0.7630

Resistance levels:0.7740 0.7775 0.7810