Trade negotiations continue to weigh heavily on the Aussie dollar

Daily Currency Update

The Australian dollar continued to move lower throughout Wednesday against its U.S. dollar reaching a low of 0.6914, a level last seen early January, as trade negotiations continue to weigh heavily on the Aussie dollar. The Greenback found some support overnight U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive declaring a national emergency over “threats against information and communications technology and services” in the US.
On the release front yesterday it all started with the May Westpac Consumer Confidence Index which contracting to 0.6% from 1.9% previously, and Q1 Wage Price index up by 0.5% vs. the 0.6% expected. We also saw the release of key Chinese data as Retail Sales advanced by 7.2% in April, well below the expected 8.6%, while Industrial Production in the same month rose by 5.4%, vs. the previous 8.5% and the expected 6.5%. The result raising concerns about the future growth prospects in China which gave safe-haven currencies like the U.S. dollar and Japanese Yen a real boost. Looking ahead today and all eyes will be on the Australian Employment data at 11.30am AEST which is expected to have added 14.0K new jobs in the last month, while the unemployment rate is seen ticking higher to 5.1.
From a technical perspective, the AUD/USD pair is currently trading at 0.6928. We continue to expect support to hold on moves approaching 0.6900 while now any upward push will likely meet resistance around 0.6930.