The Australian dollar has gained 20 pips in the past 6 hours, but it was a tough 20 pips

It's not the size of the pips, sometimes it's when you get 'em

The Australian dollar hasn't been particularly impressive over the past 6 hours. It's risen from 0.7249 to 0.7269 but when you consider the context, it's much more impressive.

First, AUD/USD is already the best performer this month by a longshot. It's up 1.8% against the US dollar, 3.16% versus JPY, 4.73% against NZD and a whopping 4.8% versus the euro. After gains like that, every move gets tougher.

Second, the gains this month have come despite major commodity weakness. Copper is at six-year lows and the CRB index is down 2.3% mtd.

The next move, however, is what's important and that's what the past 20 pips tells us. There was strong resistance at 0.7250 and heavy reported offers from there to 0.7260. Yet it cleared both over the past few hours and then took out the late October high of 0.7269, touching 0.7275.

Also mixed in was the 61.8% retracement of the Oct-Nov decline. It was at 0.7242 and gave out slightly earlier.