Flash: Pinpointing AUD weakness – NAB

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - Though the AUD began to fall from April 12th, it still remained in the 1.015-1.0625 range in which it had been stuck since mid-July 2012.

According to the NAB Research Team, “It was certainly not helped by the precipitous decline in the gold price on April 15th, the sharp fall in global resource stock prices which ensued, nor indeed the 25bp RBA rate cut on May 7th.” On May 10th the AUD finally capitulated, breaking below the 1.015 support and falling below parity for the first time since June 26th last year.

The range break proved a catalyst for real money and leveraged selling of the AUD and with corporate hedging flows not showing any substantial increase, the imbalance of flows pushed AUD down to a low of USD0.9711 on May 17th. For all the growing list of AUD negatives – weakness in the non-resource sector of the domestic economy, softer than expected CPI, falling commodity prices and a potentially lower growth profile in China – the break below parity in AUD/USD has also been driven by a renewed upturn in US Treasury yields.