And with good reason, as it is benefiting from a solid labour market report as well as a much stronger Chinese yuan. On the latter, the PBOC moved to ease cross-border funding and also fixed the onshore yuan extremely strongly today.
- Australia (June ) Jobs +32.6K (vs. +15K expected) & Unemployment rate 3.5% (vs. 3.6% exp)
- PBOC eases cross-border funding
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 7. 1466 (vs. estimate at 7.2233)
The Chinese central bank actions seem to be aimed at punishing speculators, after a big drop in the currency in trading yesterday.
In any case, the headlines when put together have helped to provide a double boost for the aussie with AUD/USD up 0.9% to 0.6830 levels currently:
This erases the losses from the past two days but buyers are still not really going anywhere just yet. There is a large option expiry at 0.6815 today but the level doesn't hold much technical significance. The key resistance near 0.6900 in which we have already seen a double-top pattern in June and July is the more important level to watch for any upside potential in AUD/USD.