AUD/USD steadies below 0.7300, looks to close modestly lower
- AUD/USD remains on track to close below 0.7300 on Thursday.
- US Dollar Index stays flat on the day above 93.00.
- Macroeconomic data releases from US failed to trigger a market reaction.
The AUD/USD pair edged lower in the early Asian session on Thursday but staged a rebound with the upbeat data from Australia providing a boost to the AUD. However, the pair struggled to hold above 0.7300 in the second half of the day and was last seen losing 0.2% on the day at 0.7290.
Earlier in the day, the Australia Bureau of Statistics announced that the Unemployment Rate dropped to 6.8% in August from 7.5% in July. Moreover, the Employment Change in the same period came in at +111,000 and beat the market expectation of -50,000 by a wide margin.
DXY settles above 93.00 after mixed US data
On the other hand, the data from the US revealed that the weekly Initial Jobless Claims declined by 33,000 to 860,000. Other data showed that Housing Starts declined by 5.1% in August following July's 17.2% increase and the Philly Fed Manufacturing Index worsened from 17.2 to 15 in September.
Nevertheless, these data had little to no impact on the greenback's performance against its rivals. The US Dollar Index, which rose to its highest level in more than two weeks at 93.59 on Thursday, was last virtually unchanged on the day at 93.10.
There won't be any macroeconomic data releases featured in the Australian economic docket on Friday.
Technical levels to watch for
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.
