AUD/USD pares early gains, turns flat below 0.7800 ahead of Powell's speech

AUD/USD struggles to hold above 0.7800 on Thursday.
US Dollar Index stays in the positive territory above 91.00.
Eyes on mid-tier US data, FOMC Chairman Powell's speech.

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

The AUD/USD pair dropped to a daily low of 0.7753 on Thursday but staged a modest rebound during the early trading hours of the European session. After rising to a session high of 0.7815, however, the pair lost its traction and was last seen trading flat on the day at 0.7775.

Earlier in the day, the data from Australia showed that Retail Sales in January increased by 0.5%, compared to analysts' estimate of 0.6%, but was largely ignored by market participants.

DXY holds above 91.00

Meanwhile, the risk-averse market environment is helping the USD gather strength against its rivals on Thursday. After closing in the positive territory on Wednesday, the US Dollar Index (DXY) is up 0.2% at 90.13 and the S&P 500 Futures are down 0.5%.

Later in the session, the US Department of Labor will release its weekly Initial Jobless Claims report and the US Census Bureau will publish January Factory Orders data. More importantly, FOMC Chairman Jerome Powell will be delivering a speech about the US economy at the Wall Street Journal jobs summit at 1705 GMT.

Investors will pay close attention to Powell's comments on Treasury bond yields. If the chairman continues to downplay the recent upsurge in yields, the USD could continue to outperform its rivals and weigh on AUD/USD.

Powell Preview: Three scenarios for the Fed to defuse the bond bonfire, market implications.

Technical levels to watch for

AUD/USD

Overview
Today last price	0.778
Today Daily Change	-0.0003
Today Daily Change %	-0.04
Today daily open	0.7783

Trends
Daily SMA20	0.7781
Daily SMA50	0.7729
Daily SMA100	0.7519
Daily SMA200	0.7304

Levels
Previous Daily High	0.7838
Previous Daily Low	0.777
Previous Weekly High	0.8008
Previous Weekly Low	0.7692
Previous Monthly High	0.8008
Previous Monthly Low	0.7562
Daily Fibonacci 38.2%	0.7796
Daily Fibonacci 61.8%	0.7812
Daily Pivot Point S1	0.7757
Daily Pivot Point S2	0.773
Daily Pivot Point S3	0.7689
Daily Pivot Point R1	0.7824
Daily Pivot Point R2	0.7865
Daily Pivot Point R3	0.7892

Author

Eren Sengezer

FXStreet

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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