Global macro overview for 14/07/2017:
The unexpected data from the Australian economy has hit the financial markets. Australian inflation expectations rebounded sharply in July, pointing to stronger cost pressures across the country. The monthly report from the Melbourne Institute that tracks expected inflation using the 30% trimmed mean measure, has delivered a 4.4% jump in consumer inflation expectations, after falling 0.4 percentage point to 3.6% last month. The general inflation expectations have decreased over the last few months in Australia, but the general trend is still positive. The underlying cost pressures in the economy in the last 12 months have been increasing, so the official inflation indicator climbed to the level of 2.1% on a year-to-year basis. Moreover, a majority of market analysts and some other economists, including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's currency economic adviser, are strongly convinced that the inflation might go even higher this year.
This situation, in turn, might put pressure on the Reserve Bank of Australia to start tightening monetary policy sooner than expected. Nevertheless, at its recent meeting last week, the RBA held interest rates at record lows and delivered another neutral policy statement. This point of view might be changed very soon as the RBA will try to adapt to the economic conditions, so the interest rate hike will mean stronger appreciation of the AUD across the board.
Let's now take a look at the AUD/USD technical picture on the daily time frame. The pair is trading near an 8-month high around the level of 0.7756 as the momentum indicator bounces from the fifty level. The next technical resistnace is the multi-month high at the level of 0.7777 and the next important support is seen at the level of 0.7748.
