The weekly report: AUD/USD

The Australian dollar is continuing to strengthen its position at the market. On Thursday 11 January 2018 it gained the highest level in three months. 

There were several reasons for such growth. First of all, the US dollar weakness during the week supported the Australian dollar. The Us dollar fell on Wednesday after the news about the willingness of China to stop purchasing US treasuries. The US dollar depreciated against all main currencies.

Another important event is the report of Australia’s retail sales for November. The rise of total sales was the highest since January 2013. The news stabilized the current state of household finances.

However, on Friday the Australian dollar started to lose positions a little bit because of the data that China released about its trade in December. According to the data, import increased much less than it was expected: 4,5% against 13,0%. This data affected demand perspectives in China – the biggest trade Australian partner. Because of this news the price of Aussie started to fall.

Nevertheless, the fall was not too big and at the time of writing of this report the price started to rise again, it gave a reason to make a positive forecast about the future growth of the Australian currency.

What can affect the rate next week is data about an unemployment rate and consumer inflation expectations on Wednesday 17 January in Australia.

AUD/USD is trying to settle above the 200-week at 0.7850. A weekly close above this line, will strengthen positions of AUD buyers. Yet, looking on the daily chart we can’t say that there’s a strong bullish momentum: moving averages are horizontal. They will offer support for the pair at 0.7770 and 0.7700. The pair still has substantial resistance located at 0.7900 and 0.8000.