Debt ceiling aside, watch the dollar and central bank meetings!

As the debt ceiling discussions draw to a close, the dollar's rally indicates that markets have largely priced in this event. The focus now returns to the Federal Reserve (Fed) and its notably hawkish stance. Fed officials' recent statements and fed fund futures, which are pricing in another rate hike in the upcoming meeting, suggest it might be the right time to reassess the dollar pairs.

Two weeks ago, we discussed the USDCNH pair, which made a swift upward move. Interestingly, the correlation between USDCNH and USDAUD has been increasing, and USDCNH has been a leading indicator for the last few moves, with USDAUD following its trend shortly after.

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To understand why, let's look at the AUDCNH as well as the USD. The moves in these pairs seem to be largely driven by the USD, as the AUDCNH has remained range-bound since 2022.

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The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is scheduled to meet on June 6th and is expected to maintain its policy, while the Fed will meet on June 13th and is expected to hike rates. This divergence in monetary policies could further strengthen the case for a USDAUD rally.

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Current yield differentials continue to favour the USD carry trade and this trend appears set to continue as the Fed is expected to raise rates while the RBA remains on hold, widening the yield differentials.

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With the Fed poised for another rate hike and the RBA expected to maintain its policy stance, along with the dollar's strengthening and the USDCNH leading the AUDUSD pair, we could express our market views via a risk-managed trade long on the USD and short on the AUD. To set up this position, we can take a short position on the Micro AUD/USD futures, with stop-loss orders placed at 0.673 and take-profit orders at 0.627. A Micro AUD/USD futures contract represents 10,000 AUD, with each point move in AUD equalling USD 10,000.

The charts above were generated using CME’s Real-Time data available on TradingView. Inspirante Trading Solutions is subscribed to both TradingView Premium and CME Real-time Market Data which allows us to identify trading set-ups in real-time and express our market opinions. If you have futures in your trading portfolio, you can check out on CME Group data plans available that suit your trading needs tradingview.com/cme/

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Reference:
cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html
cmegroup.com/markets/fx/g10/e-micro-australian-dollar.contractSpecs.html
AUDUSDCMEdollarDXYfedfederalreserveFundamental AnalysisRBATrend AnalysisusdaudUSDCNH

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