The AUD/USD opened this morning at $0.8222 and saw an early dip to $0.8215 in an extremely quiet start to the Asia-Pacific session. Aussie-dollar inched up again after the release of TD Securities’ Inflation gauge for December but failed to get past $0.8232. It pushed through the early highs to hit a marginal high of $0.8244 but quickly deflated after the weak start to Chinese stock markets. Aussie-dollar slid to $0.8208 after that but ran into demand from local corporate accounts just below the lows. That low held for a while after that, before further aussie-yen selling then pushed aussie-dollar down to another low for the session at $0.8196. The pair recovered marginally in the afternooon to last trade at $0.8216. Next support has been cited at $0.8145/42, the area of the 21-day moving average and the Jan. 15 low. With US markets out today for a holiday, the key focus for the local market this week remains tomorrow’s Q4 Chinese GDP data, market consensus forecasting growth of 7.2% y/y.
