Global macro overview for 18/02/2016:
The labor data were delivered from Australia overnight and it was worse than experts had expected as the unemployment rate jumped to 6.0% (vs. 5.8% expected and 5.8% prior). The employment change came in below expectations as well, because -7.9k people has lost their jobs as full-time employment declined the most since 2013 (economists had expected job growth of around 13,000 in the reported month). Strong job growth was one of the reasons why the Reserve Bank of Australia decided to maintain interest rates unchanged. The current situation in Australia, the most China-dependent economy in the developed world, is slowly getting worse as it is struggling with fallout from plummeting prices for its key commodity exports and waning for investment. In this situation, the chances for RBA to cut the interest rate further down are increasing to more than 50% by the end of the year.
Let's not take a look at the technical picture of AUD/USD pair. The market is trading in the middle of the trading range in the H4 time frame, but it likely to get ready to test another resistance at the level of 0.7242. The brown trend line is still providing support, so bulls remain in control. A breakout above the level of 0.7242 will open the road to the next technical resistance at the level of 0.7327.
