AUD/USD headed to 0.6800 on 6 month view

By FXStreet FXStreet (Guatemala) – AUD/USD remains consolidated around the midpoint of the 0.70 handle in the aftermath of the Nonfarm Payrolls data that leaves the market placing bets for a rate hike before the end of the year.

At the same time, China weighs on the Aussie and the data of the weekend crystallised the sentiment for the possibility of a hard landing for China pressuring the resource based currency.

China printed its highest trade surplus on record last month where the trade balance offered a surplus of $61.4bn for October vs expectations of +$62.0bn while prior was $60.34bn. Exports were -6.9% y/y vs expected -3.2% (prior was -3.7%) while Imports were -18.8% y/y vs expected -15.2% (prior was -20.4%).

In respect of Nonfarm Payrolls, this was also breaking records with the average hourly earnings posting the largest year-over-year gain since 2009 and increased 0.4% vs the estimated 0.2% and previous 0.0% m/m, up 2.5% over the prev year. The headline number for October came out as 271K, beating the estimate of 180K while the prior number was revised to 137K from 142K.

Markets are motivated on the divergences between the Central Bank and analysts at BBH explained that while the RBA …read more

Source:: FX Street