Aussie rises on Friday as risk sentiment shifts

Daily Currency Update

Risk sentiment seemed to shift late in the Friday session as global equity markets and bond yields both rose heading into the weekend. This saw risk sensitive currencies outperform, allowing the AUD to rise from 0.7610 to 0.7644. The NZD also rose from 0.6970 to trade above 0.7000 which saw the AUD/NZD cross range between 1.0890 and 1.0930.
Without a clear catalyst for the price shifts, market expectations of a strong global recovery this year were buoyed by the impressive vaccination progress in the United States and news that President Biden is targeting 200 million vaccinated Americans within his first 100 days of office.
Although we have a busy week on the data front, today’s calendar is relatively light. Out of New Zealand, we have the February employment indicator which is expected to remain slow due to the lack of tourists over the normally busy summer months. Later we will see some second-tier mortgage data out of the UK which is not expected to be market moving before the session is rounded out by the Dallas Fed Index for March and some Fed Speak from FOMC’s Waller on the topic of Fed independence.
Looking at AUD/USD from a technical perspective, first lines of downside support can be seen between 0.7612 and 0.7615. A break below this level will test the psychological barrier at 0.7600 and opens the door to a testing of the march low of 0.7560. On the topside, resistance is seen around the 0.7660 mark with next resistance significantly higher at 0.7755.