A$ Breaks Through 66c But Outperforms Europe, Employment Data Coming Up

AUDUSD fell 1% as equity markets continued to focus on banking stability and is currently trading around 0.6618 after a peak of 0.6711 during Wednesday’s APAC trading. It fell below 0.66 to a low of 0.6590. It did outperform Europe but not kiwi and the yen. Credit Suisse was the centre of concern but the SNB announced support. The USD index rose 0.9% on the back of the market turmoil.

• The bearish theme continues for AUDUSD and the break lower maintains the price sequence of lower lows and lower highs. It broke key support of 0.6629, the December 20 low, which signals a move towards 0.6547. But did find support at 0.66 on Wednesday. Initial resistance is at 0.6734.
• Aussie is down 0.2% against the kiwi to 1.0692 and it is down 1.5% versus the yen to 88.27. AUDEUR is up 0.5% to 0.6256 but AUDGBP is down 0.1% to 0.5490.
• Equity markets slid on continued banking worries with the S&P down 0.7% but the Eurostoxx plummeted 3.5% and the Swiss SMI -1.9%. The VIX was up about 2.5pp to 26.1%. The pullback in risk appetite hit oil prices with WTI down over 5% to $67.61/bbl, its lowest since December 2021. Copper fell 3% and iron ore is down to just below $130/t.
• Today the Melbourne Institute’s consumer inflation expectations for March print followed by the February employment report. 50k new jobs and a dip in the unemployment rate to 3.6% are expected.