AUDUSD - RBA Rate Cut and Tariff Deadline in FocusIn a week that is light on economic data and events, with a heavy emphasis towards what happens next once President Trump’s 90-day tariff pause ends on Wednesday (July 9th), the AUDUSD currency pair has more than most for traders to focus on.
This is due to the fact the RBA, the Australian central bank, decides early Tuesday morning (0530 BST) whether to cut interest rates for the third time in a row from 3.85% to 3.6%, as is widely expected by markets, given that inflation has eased in recent months back into the RBA’s 2-3% target range. This announcement is closely followed by the RBA press conference (0630 BST), which could also be an important influence on the direction of AUDUSD depending on the comments Governor Bullock makes regarding future rate moves, economic growth and tariffs.
In terms of trade tariffs, President Trump last week suggested that he is unlikely to extend the 90 day pause, although he has changed his mind before. He also indicated that letters are being sent to trading partners outlining tariffs of between 10-70% on imports depending on whether he believes the country has been negotiating in good faith or not. These new tariffs are due to go into force on August 1st, so there is potentially still time for more twists and turns in this story and AUDUSD volatility may well increase across the trading week ahead as it plays out.
AUDUSD touched an 8 month high at 0.6590 last Tuesday (July 1st) before running into a wall of profit taking and eventually closing the week at 0.6550. Given the risk events facing traders that were just outlined above, this type of price action may not be that surprising.
Looking at how this week has started for AUDUSD, early trading in Asia has seen fresh selling to potential support around 0.6500 (see technical update below), which at the time of writing (0730 BST), is still holding, although bounces have so far been limited.
Technical Update: Preparing For The Week Ahead
With potential for a rate cut in Australia and concerns over tariff news this week, it perhaps isn’t too much of a surprise AUDUSD price corrections are materialising as a reaction to recent strength. While this decline may continue over the short term, traders are perhaps more focused on the potentially positive pattern of higher price highs and higher price lows that have materialised since April 9th 2025, which the chart below shows.
Of course, there is no guarantee this pattern will continue over coming sessions but being aware of support and resistance levels that may hold or exaggerate future price moves may be useful to know in advance.
Potential Support Levels:
After price strength, especially if new recovery highs within an uptrend pattern have been posted, it may prove to be Fibonacci retracement levels that act as support to any future price weakness. Calculating these on the period of price strength seen between May 12th up to the July 1st high, the 38.2% retracement level stands at 0.6501.
With the current setback now moving towards 0.6501 this morning, traders may be watching how this potential support level performs on a closing basis, as confirmed breaks lower might lead to a more extended phase of weakness that could prompt tests of 0.6473, the 50% retracement, even 0.6446, the deeper 62% retracement level.
Potential Resistance Levels:
Having seen new highs recently posted, which was the highest AUDUSD trade since mid-November 2024 (see the chart below), we can look at the weekly perspective to establish the next possible resistance levels.
As the chart shows, the latest AUDUSD activity has recently tested weekly resistance at 0.6550, which is equal to the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of September 2024 to April 2025 weakness. It should be noted, in a similar way to last week, that it is possible AUDUSD may see trading activity above this 0.6550 resistance, but as we are using a weekly timeframe, it is this upcoming Friday's weekly close above this level that is required to suggest possibilities of a successful upside closing break.
Much will depend on future market sentiment and price trends, but weekly closes above 0.6550 if seen, may lead to further price strength towards 0.6688, the November 2024 high.
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