AUD/USD retreats towards 0.7200 on firmer USD before Fed showdown

AUD/USD fades post PBOC gains while paring the intraday gains to 0.11%, declining to 0.7240 ahead of Wednesday’s European session.

Fresh fears emanating from China and cautious mood ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) monetary policy meeting announcement challenge the pair buyers. On the same line was the RBA policymakers’ refrain to signal monetary moves.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) safeguards Beijing’s money flow against Evergrande default with a heavy liquidity injection of around 110 billion while the struggled read-estate major announced readiness to pay the coupons on September 23 expiry. However, chatters over China’s other real-estate player, namely Guangzhou R&F, suspending the bond trading renew the US dollar’s safe-haven demand. Furthermore, the Bloomberg headlines indicating the EU-US push to curb China's risk and the British-American ties, also joined by Australia, to challenge Beijing to weigh on the risk appetite and benefit the US Dollar Index (DXY).

That said, the US Dollar Index (DXY) picks up bids to 93.258, up 0.08% intraday by the press time.

Earlier in the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) policymakers, namely Deputy Governor Guy Debelle and Assistant Governor (Financial System) Michelle Bullock, refrained from any direct hints to the future monetary policy moves and challenged the AUD/USD buyers.

It’s worth noting that the recent probe to the risk-on mood weighs on the stock futures and the US Treasury yields also remain firmer at the latest.

Moving on, Fed tapering concerns and geopolitical fears concerning the West versus Beijing story may restrict the AUD/USD moves.

Read: Fed Preview: Three ways in which Powell could down the dollar, and none is the dot-plot

Technical analysis

Unless crossing a confluence of 20-day and 50-day simple moving average (DMA), around 0.7335, AUD/USD bears can keep attacking monthly horizontal support near 0.7220.