AUD/USD: Muted reaction to mixed China data
- AUD/USD sees little action following the mixed batch of China data.
- While Industrial Production ticked higher as expected, Retail Sales growth slowed in November.
China's first-tier economic data released Monday painted a mixed picture of the world's second-largest economy and failed to elicit a strong reaction from the Aussie dollar pairs.
As represented by Retail Sales, China's consumer spending rose 5% year-on-year in November versus 5.2% expected and 4.3% previous. Industrial Production rose versus 7% as expected, following October's 5.9%.
While the uptick in the factory output is good news for the commodity-sensitive AUD, so far, the currency pair has struggled to gather upside traction. That's possibly because markets are forward-looking and might be worried about rising prospects of the economically-painful hard coronavirus lockdowns across the advanced world. Besides, the weak Retail Sales number weakens the China economic rebound story.
The AUD/USD pair continues to trade largely unchanged on the day near 0.7535, having printed a high of 0.7546 in early Asia.
The Reserve Bank of Australia's December meeting minutes released early Tuesday showed policymakers stood ready to boost stimulus if required. The dovish tone, however, failed to move the Aussie dollar. RBA's Kearns was out on the wires, stating that Australia's banks are better prepared than they were during the 2008 crash.
Technical levels
Author
Omkar Godbole
FXStreet Contributor
Omkar Godbole, editor and analyst, joined FXStreet after four years as a research analyst at several Indian brokerage companies.
