There is hope in the financial markets that President Trump will rethink his recent proposals for steel and aluminum import duties, which might encourage a bounce of the stock market indices and other risky assets. RBA left the interest rate without changes, and the message did not cause much reaction to AUD / USD. Relatively good trading sentiment emabled USD / JPY to bounce almost to 106.50. EUR/USD remained close to 1.2350. Stronger currencies are NZD and SEK.
On Tuesday, 6th of March, the event calendar is light in important news releases, but market participants should keep an eye on Consumer Price Index data from Switzerland, Retail Sales data form Italy and Ivey Purchasing Managers Index data from Canada. Ther are some speeches scheduled for today as well, and the main speakers will be FOMC Member William Dudley, MPC Member Andy Haldane and RBA Governor Philip Lowe.
AUD/USD analysis for 06/03/2018:
The Reserve Bank of Australia kept the cash rate at 1.5% in, line with expectations. In the statement, the bank did not address the recent market turmoil. On the positive side, it can be noted that the rate of wage growth is already well behind, but the language describing the future economic growth has been eased (the phrase that the increase will be "slightly above 3%" has been removed). Sometime earlier, the Australian retail sales data release in January disappointed by an increase of 0.1% m/m, while the forecast was set at the level of 0.4%.The data suggest a weak rebound after the December declines. The result may have been affected by sell-offs, but in any case it draws a pale picture of the economy - either consumer sentiment is weakening or inflationary pressure is not progressing. Other weak data from Australia were Current Account data, which revealed that balance after the fourth quarter was -14 billion AUD vs. expected AUD 12.2 billion.
Let's now take a look at the AUD/USD technical picture at the H4 time frame. The market is trying to bounce higher after the violation of the important technical support zone between the levels of 0.7729 - 0.7758. The price has managed to make a local high at the level of 0.7794, which is a 38% Fibo of the previous leg down. Nevertheless, if bulls want to regain control over this market, they must break out above the level of 0.7897. Otherwise, the downtrend will continue lower towards the levels of 0.7693 and 0.7645.
