The Australian dollar is poised to post its first weekly gain in 5 weeks but it’s awfully difficult to be optimistic. Where is the bounce?
Reasons AUD/USD should have bounced by now:
- The US dollar has been softer
- Shanghai stocks climbed 13% from the bottom
- The S&P touched an all-time high
- Australia had a decent jobs report
- The RBA didn’t cut and wasn’t particularly dovish
- The market is massively short
- Even gold bounced
Yet here we are with AUD/USD barely 2 cents above the 33-month low.
Technically, AUD/USD doesn’t look great either. The highs and lows have both been lower and the sideways move over the last month has relieved oversold conditions.
The Aug 7 RBA decision looms and that will be the best chance for AUD/USD to bounce and the OIS market is pricing in a 63% chance of a cut. If they don’t cut, it’s still not great news for AUD so long as they keep a dovish bias. Expectations for the coming year are only about 38 basis points of easing and the risk of more easing will remain higher than less.
