AUDUSD: Aussie Dollar Gains Modestly on Better than Expected China GDP

Summary:
• AUDUSD gains slightly on better than expected Chinese manufacturing data and retail sales, even as GDP data remained flat.

The Aussie Dollar was boosted by strong Chinese industrial production data in early Asian trading. The AUDUSD held on to Friday’s gains above the 70 cents mark, as it gained modestly on the back of better than expected data from China. The AUSDUSD is currently trading at 0.7036, up 25 pips for the day.

Data Highlights

• GDP data from China show that the quarterly reading was at 6.2%, which was what the market was expecting.
• Industrial production was up by 6.3% on an annual basis, which was far more than the 5.2% expected by markets.
• Annualized retail sales also trended higher to 9.8% as opposed to the market expectation of 8.5%.

The industrial product and retail sales data was just enough to support a mild uptick in the AUDUSD, but the GDP data came out flat and so did not cause major movement on the Aussie Dollar.

Focus now shifts to the Monetary Policy meeting minutes which are scheduled for release on Tuesday at 9.30pm EST. The Australian employment data will also hit the newswires on Thursday, same time. The market consensus is for 9,100 jobs to have been added to the Australian economy in June 2019, a far cry from the 42,300 jobs added the previous month. The trade highlights will be discussed in a subsequent update.

AUDUSD is now approaching a key resistance level at 0.7048.Don’t miss a beat! Follow us on Twitter.

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