The Australian dollar has edged higher, as the markets search for economic cues at the start of the trading week. In Monday’s North American session, the pair is trading at 0.7630. The only Australian release is the CB Leading Index, which posted a small gain of 0.1%. There are no US events on Monday. On Tuesday, Australia releases Construction Work Done, while the US will release New Home Sales, a key indicator.
There was good news from the Australian labor market last week, as employment numbers sparkled in July. Employment Change jumped 26.2 thousand, crushing the estimate of 10.2 thousand. This marked the sharpest gain since October 2015. However, the rise was made up of part-time jobs, as full-time positions actually dropped. There was also positive news from the unemployment rate, which dipped to 5.7%, down from 5.8% a month earlier. The strong job numbers will be welcome news to the RBA, which cut rates to an all-time low of 1.50% earlier this month and would like to avoid another cut at its next policy meeting in September.
AUD/USD Fundamentals
Monday (August 22)
- 10:30 Australian CB Leading Index. Actual 0.1%
Tuesday (August 23)
- 10:00 US New Home Sales. Estimate 575K
- 21:30 Australian Construction Work Done. Estimate -1.9%
AUD/USD for Monday, August 22, 2016
AUD/USD August 22 at 11:30 EDT
Open: 0.7605 High: 0.7640 Low: 0.7582 Close: 0.7629
AUD/USD Technical
| S3 | S2 | S1 | R1 | R2 | R3 |
| 0.7339 | 0.7440 | 0.7560 | 0.7701 | 0.7835 | 0.7938 |
- AUD/USD posted slight losses in the Asian session. The pair recovered these losses in the European session and has posted slight gains in North American trade
- There is resistance at 0.7701
- 0.7560 is providing support
- Current range: 0.7560 to 0.7701
Further levels in both directions:
- Below: 0.7560, 0.7440 and 0.7339
- Above: 0.7701, 0.7835, 0.7938 and 0.8045
OANDA’s Open Positions Ratio
AUD/USD ratio is unchanged on Monday. Currently, short positions have a small majority (53%), indicative of slight trader bias towards the pair continuing to move upwards.