AUD/USD: Mildly bid near 0.7130 resistance, Australian consumer confidence, comments from RBA’s Debelle awaited

The Australian Dollar (AUD) is taking the bids around 0.7130 versus the US Dollar (USD) on early Tuesday. The AUD/USD pair fell short of taking big advantage of the greenback’s weakness as risk-aversion also dragged the Aussie down. Australia’s Westpac Consumer Sentiment and speech from the RBA’s Assistant Governor (Risk Management Committee) Guy Debelle will be in the immediate focus of the market ahead of the US data/events.

The recent trade spat between the US and the EU didn’t allow the Aussie to enjoy more time beyond 0.7130 resistance that was holding the AUD/USD pair confined since early April.

Though, overall softness in the USD quotes ahead of the key events and the latest news that the US and Chinese lawmakers will discuss details of the much-awaited trade deal today helped the pair remain on the positive side.

While on and off in Australia’s Westpac consumer confidence has been troublesome off-late, traders will closely observe comments from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Assistant Governor to get details of recent economic developments. The consumer sentiment gauge dropped -4.8% in its latest release for March.

Following the data/speech from Australia, the US consumer price index (CPI) and the FOMC minutes will be in limelight. Headline inflation numbers from the US are likely to improve as the monthly CPI could rise to 0.3% from 0.2% while likely registering 1.8% growth versus 1.5% on YoY basis. The ex-food and energy version of the CPI might remain unchanged to 2.1% on yearly format but could increase to 0.2% from 0.1% on MoM basis. Moving on, the minutes report of the latest Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) monetary policy report could give additional details of how strongly the bears dominate the Fed’s rate-hike direction.

AUD/USD Technical Analysis

In addition to successful trading beyond 0.7130 horizontal-resistance, the Aussie needs to sustain the break of 0.7145/50 confluence comprising 100-day simple moving average (SMA) and seven-week-old trend-line to justify its strength in targeting 200-ay SMA level near 0.7200.

Alternatively, 50-day SMA level of 0.7115, followed by 0.7100 and 0.7070, can challenge short-term sellers whereas 0.7050, 0.7000 and 0.6980 could become crucial for Bears then after.