AUD/USD pares early gains, turns red near 0.6860

Australia's trade surplus widened to 5,8 billion AUD in November.
Annual CPI in China remained unchanged at 4.5% in December.
US Dollar Index advances to 97.50 area ahead of speeches by FOMC members.

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

The AUD/USD pair struggled to find direction during the Asian session amid mixed macroeconomic data releases and turned south ahead of the American session. As of writing, the pair was down 0.06% on the day at 0.6861.

Earlier in the day, the data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that Australia's trade surplus widened to 5,8 billion AUD from 4.5 billion AUD in October but came in below the market expectation of 5.9 billion AUD. Commenting on the data, "much of the sharp improvement in the trade position has been due to resources exports but the weak A$ has also helped services exports, while soft domestic growth has kept a lid on imports," noted Westpac analysts.

In the meantime, the data from China showed that inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), stayed unchanged at 4.5% on a yearly basis in December and missed analysts' estimate of 4.7%.

USD stays strong ahead of speeches by Fed officials

On the other hand, the sharp upsurge witnessed in the US Treasury bond yield on Wednesday and the better-than-expected ADP reading helped the greenback outperform its major rivals. With the US Dollar Index extending its rebound on Thursday, the pair struggled to stay in its consolidation channel and dropped into the negative territory. At the moment, the US Dollar Index is up 0.1% on the day at 97.40.

Later in the day, the weekly Initial Jobless Claims data from the United States and Federal Open Market Committee members Kaplan, Kashkari and Williams' speeches will be looked upon for fresh impetus.

Technical levels to watch for

AUD/USD

Overview
Today last price	0.6863
Today Daily Change	-0.0003
Today Daily Change %	-0.04
Today daily open	0.6866

Trends
Daily SMA20	0.6925
Daily SMA50	0.6869
Daily SMA100	0.6831
Daily SMA200	0.6895

Levels
Previous Daily High	0.6886
Previous Daily Low	0.6848
Previous Weekly High	0.7043
Previous Weekly Low	0.693
Previous Monthly High	0.7033
Previous Monthly Low	0.6762
Daily Fibonacci 38.2%	0.6863
Daily Fibonacci 61.8%	0.6871
Daily Pivot Point S1	0.6847
Daily Pivot Point S2	0.6829
Daily Pivot Point S3	0.6809
Daily Pivot Point R1	0.6885
Daily Pivot Point R2	0.6905
Daily Pivot Point R3	0.6923

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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