AUD/USD gives back half of late April rebound, what’s next?

If the sellers wanted to send a message, they could have said it more clearly yesterday during the exchanges. It was a double whammy for the Australian. Australia’s retail sales data was poor and, when combined with lower risk sentiment and a firmer dollar, was enough to push AUD/USD down more than 1%.

To compound the misery, this comes against the backdrop of a technical rejection of the 100-day moving average (red line) on Monday as well as a fall below the 200-day moving average (blue line) and the 0 level, 6500 yesterday. And that brings us to a test of the 50.0 retracement level of the rebound now at 0.6474.

For today’s trading, the dollar side of the equation will be considered more. We have some key US data coming up, then the FOMC meeting.

At the same time, risk sentiment is also tense after stocks fell sharply yesterday. S&P 500 futures are down 0.3% and Nasdaq futures are down 0.5%. This will be another factor to consider for the aussie in the upcoming sessions.

For now, AUD/USD is calmer and remains little changed near 0.6478. But with sellers in control, it won’t take much to push the price down towards 0.6400 if the right conditions present themselves later today.

As for buyers, they have their work cut out for them to convince otherwise. The 200 hour moving average currently stands at 0.6492 and the 100 hour moving average at 0.6526. These will be the first two key short-term levels to surpass to solidify any potential rebound during the week.