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AUD/USD remains bid as RBA statement carries hawkish tinge

  • RBA keeps rates unchanged as expected.
  • AUD could extend gains as the RBA statement carries hawkish tinge.

The Reserve Bank of Australia kept the cash rate (interest rate) unchanged as expected but sounded a little bit hawkish on inflation.

The central bank has omitted the line - "inflation is likely to remain low for some time". Further, it says the Australian dollar remains within a range of the past two years. Both the statements could be read as being hawkish and may strengthen the bid tone around the AUD. 

As of writing, the AUD/USD pair is trading at 0.7640 levels. The currency pair found bids below 0.76 in early Asia, tracking the late NY session decline in the treasury yields. Also, a better-than-expected Aussie retail sales data and China services PMI release boosted the demand for the AUD.

AUD/USD Technical Levels

AUD/USD seems to have found a near-term bottom at 0.7532, courtesy of the bullish price-RSI divergence on the dailies and a breach of the descending top pattern. A move above 0.7645 (Nov. 27 high) would open up upside towards 0.7691 (200-day MA) - 0.7707 (50-day MA). Further gains could be hard to come as the 50-day MA is fast approaching the 200-day MA for the negative crossover.

On the downside, breach of support at 0.76 (psychological level) could yield a pullback to 0.7551 (Dec. 1 low). A violation there would expose the recent low of 0.7532.

 TREND INDEXOB/OS INDEXVOLATILY INDEX
15MBullishNeutral Expanding
1HBearishOverbought Expanding
4HBullishNeutral Expanding
1DBullishNeutral Low
1WBullishOversold Shrinking

Author

Omkar Godbole

Omkar Godbole

FXStreet Contributor

Omkar Godbole, editor and analyst, joined FXStreet after four years as a research analyst at several Indian brokerage companies.

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