AUD/USD has come back to life in the midday New York session as it attempts to print a fresh high for Wednesday. The pair has traveled between a low of 0.6629 and a high of 0.6673 so far.
Earlier in the day, the US Dollar rallied to a seven-week high as investors moved in due to its safe-haven allure amid the risk of a US debt default. Additionally, firm US Consumer Spending and Housing data gave the currency a boost as traders anticipated the higher odds of another Federal Reserve interest rate hike.
The US Dollar index, a measure of the greenback's value against six major currencies, climbed as high as 103.11
DXY, its strongest level since late March. It was last up 0.2% at 102.806.
The move in the high beta Aussie was helped by a rise in US indices on Wall Street. The debt ceiling talks continue after top-ranking lawmakers met with President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday. House Representative Speaker Kevin McCarthy argued that a debt-ceiling agreement by Sunday is doable. Meanwhile, US Vice President Kamala Harris is to brief on preventing a default on Thursday.
Meanwhile, domestically, net AUD short positions had moved up to their highest levels since November as the Reserve Bank of Australia moves towards a perceived peak in the policy rate. With that being said, however, we have key data out later today in the Employment report.
´´After the strong jobs report last month, we expect Employment to expand at a still-firm pace of +20k in April (cons: 25k, Mar: 53k) though the risk is biased to the upside given favorable seasonals,´´ analysts at TD Securities said.
´´We think labour demand is still outstripping supply and expect the tightness in the labour market to only ease gradually. We look for the participation rate to stay unchanged at 66.6% and the unemployment rate to rise to 3.6% (last: 3.5%) due to higher working-age population growth,´´ the analysts explained. ´´Overall, we think another strong jobs report may pressure the RBA to retain a hawkish tone and the June meeting could be another live decision.´´