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AUD/USD jumps to 8-week highs above 0.72 on upbeat China data

  • AUD/USD rose to 0.7205 soon before press time, the highest level since Feb. 21.
  • China's GDP steadied at 6.4 percent in the first quarter, while March industrial production and retail sales bettered estimates by a big margin.
  • The upbeat data is boding well for the Aussie dollar, a proxy for China. The AUD/USD pair could extend gains further if the equities pick up a strong bid in response to China data.

The bid tone around the Aussie dollar seems to have strengthened in response to the better-than-expected China data dump.

As of writing, the AUD/USD pair is trading at a session high of 0.7200, having added more than 20 pips in the last few minutes.

The official data released at 02:00 GMT showed the world's second-largest economy expanded at an annualized rate of 6.4 percent in three months to March 2019, beating the expected growth rate of 6.3 percent, The economy had expanded 6.4 percent in the final quarter of 2018.

An above-forecast growth rate will likely strengthen the narrative that China's economy has bottomed out. As a result, riskier assets, including the AUD could remain better bid during the day ahead, more so, as both industrial production - a sign of external demand - and retail sales - a sign of domestic demand - released along with the GDP have bettered estimates.

Industrial production rose 8.5 percent year-on-year in March versus 5.3 percent in February, beating the expected rebound to 5.9 percent by a big margin. Meanwhile, retail sales rose 8.7 percent, surpassing the estimate of 8.4 percent.

Technical Levels

AUD/USD

Overview
Today last price0.72
Today Daily Change0.0000
Today Daily Change %0.00
Today daily open0.7175
 
Trends
Daily SMA200.7119
Daily SMA500.7108
Daily SMA1000.7138
Daily SMA2000.7192
Levels
Previous Daily High0.718
Previous Daily Low0.7139
Previous Weekly High0.7193
Previous Weekly Low0.7087
Previous Monthly High0.7168
Previous Monthly Low0.7002
Daily Fibonacci 38.2%0.7164
Daily Fibonacci 61.8%0.7155
Daily Pivot Point S10.7149
Daily Pivot Point S20.7124
Daily Pivot Point S30.7108
Daily Pivot Point R10.719
Daily Pivot Point R20.7206
Daily Pivot Point R30.7231

Author

Omkar Godbole

Omkar Godbole

FXStreet Contributor

Omkar Godbole, editor and analyst, joined FXStreet after four years as a research analyst at several Indian brokerage companies.

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