Morning Preview: AUD Above 80 – Does this Present an Opportunity?

Wow what a night that was for FX traders.

As Asian markets open to the news that the BoC has hiked rates, there’s also another hurricane for the US to contend with and an FOMC member stepping down. Oh yeah – North Korea as well. And that’s all before we have the ECB tonight, who will be releasing their interest rate decision plus more on QE.

But let’s get onto all that later. First and foremost we have to take a look at Asian markets and what type of opportunities they might have in store for us. Luckily we have to look no further than Australia today, who have a big economic data day. It’s been a couple of big days in actual fact for AUD traders on the back of the RBA and GDP.

Today attention turns to retail sales as the headline event, with the trade balance coming along for the ride.

More Opportunity to Short the AUD

We’ve had a few pops above 0.8000 which have sold off, however as it stands this morning the Aussie is still trading above that level. Longer term we will likely fall back down to earth, but for the purposes of today’s trading I want to be selling above 0.8050.

For the most part I’m still bearish on the AUD/USD however it has continued to show strength. That’s been helped in part by a weaker USD, but longer term I'm looking for things to turnaround.

Key Levels