AUD/USD: Mildly bid around 0.7170 ahead of Australia employment data

The AUD/USD pair is on the rounds near 0.7170 during the early Asian session on Thursday. The Aussie pair is mildly bid after its positive run on Wednesday as traders await the key jobs report for March.

Yesterday, the quote ticked beyond 200-day simple moving average (SMA) for the first time in over 13-months as headline economic data from Australia’s largest customer China flashed upbeat numbers. 

However, follow-on releases of the US trade balance and comments from Fed members like Patrick Harker and James Bullard dragged the pair again beneath the important SMA but couldn’t avoid positive close.

Market risk sentiment failed to remain strong for long as the Wednesday-end figure for the US 10-year treasury yield signals 2.59% mark with no change to its previous daily closing.

Moving on, Aussie employment data is likely to show seasonally adjusted employment change grew 12.0K from 4.6K prior but likely increase in the unemployment rate to 5.0% versus 4.9% prior could disappoint buyers. The participation rate is also likely to remain unchanged at 65.6%.

Elsewhere, the US retail sales control group figure for March could also limit Aussie gains if matching +0.4% growth forecast compared to -0.2% earlier.
In case of the US-China trade deal, recent news reports favor a likely final announcement sometime near late-May or early June.

AUD/USD Technical Analysis

In addition to 200-day SMA level of 0.7195, 0.7200 round-figure also acts as an immediate upside barrier for the pair to clear in order to aim for an upward sloping trend-line stretched since March 01, at 0.7230.

Meanwhile, failure to hold the latest strength can recall 100-day SMA level of 0.7140, followed by 0.7110 comprising 50-day SMA, ahead of testing an ascending support-line since early-March, near 0.7080.