AUD/USD squeeze risk growing?With tentative signs of stablisation in commodity futures and US equity index futures pushing higher in early Asian trade, the prospects for some form of squeeze higher in AUD/USD appear to be growing.
You can see just how violent the selloff has been over the past two weeks, leaving it oversold on RSI (14) for the first time since August 2023. But the modest reversal on Thursday after breaking the 61.8% Fib retracement of the April-July low-high is about the closest thing to a bullish signal we’ve seen for the AUD/USD in a while.
It’s tempting to go long with a stop below the fib level for protection, but it would be nice to see RSI break its downtrend first to provide confidence that the bearish price momentum is ebbing.
Given the acute focus on China, the reaction to the PBOC’s CNY fix in FX markets, and opening of Chinese stock futures, may provide a strong tell on where the near-term path of least resistance lies. If they open firmer, it may increase the probability of AUD/USD upside.
AUD/USD a proxy for risk appetite
The chart also shows the rolling 10-day correlation between AUD/USD with COMEX copper in orange, crude oil in black, S&P 500 in green and Nasdaq 100 futures in blue. Every single correlation sits north of 0.8 with three of the four hovering around 0.9 or higher. The higher the score, the greater the relationship between the two variables.
Taking a step back, the strong correlations suggest AUD/USD is being used as proxy for risk sentiment, a role it has often played previously when we’ve seen boarder risk-on-risk-off moves in markets. That means if we see even a modest improvement in risk appetite, as seen on Thursday when the latest batch of US economic data suggested premonitions of an imminent recession may be misplaced, the AUD/USD could find buyers.
The price action in commodity futures is another potential sign that the worst of the rout is over, at least for the moment.
