AUD/USD hold on to gains with all eyes on the key Australia/China statistics

While the extension to the US tariffs on some Chinese goods and resumption of trade talks pleased the AUD/USD pair buyers on Tuesday, traders await fresh clues from the key data at home and also from China as the quote seesaws near 0.6800 during the initial Asian trading on Wednesday.

The Aussie turned out to be the biggest G10 currency winner after the US delayed its previously announced September 01 tariffs on China to December 15 for some of the goods. It was also mentioned by the US President Donald Trump, via Twitter, that the US diplomats had a talk with China, indicating a resumption of trade negotiations and a likely September meeting between the world’s two largest economies.

Against the move was Hong Kong protests that are on since more than ten-weeks and has again off the airport with police entering to take the charge as per the latest news.

With this, the Wall Street registered gains while the bond yields also recovered. Among them, Nasdaq Composite Index was the biggest gainer on equities’ side while the US 2-year treasury bond rose 7 basis points (bps) and that of 10-year note gained 4 bps by the end of Tuesday.

Moving on, second quarter (Q2) Wage Price Index from Australia, and China’s July month Retail Sales and Industrial Production become the key for Aussie traders at the moment. Australian wage growth is less likely to change from 0.5% (QoQ) and 2.3% (YoY) numbers but expected weakness in Chinese statistics could hurt the pair’s latest upside momentum. Forecasts suggest Industrial Production (YoY) softens from 6.3% to 5.8% whereas Retail Sales could weaken from 9.8% to 8.6% on a yearly format.

Technical Analysis

Given the 0.6745/50 area’s capacity to trigger the quote’s pullback multiple times since early-month, it’s run-up towards June low of 0.6831 and a consequent rise to 21-day exponential moving average (EMA) level of 0.6850 becomes likely if prices manage to cross recent high near 0.6822. Alternatively, pair’s drop beneath 0.6745 may take a rest near 0.6700 round-figure before visiting the latest low of 0.6677.