• AUD/USD comes under some selling pressure on Thursday, though the downside remains limited.
• The Fed’s signal that rates will increase further in 2023 underpins the USD and exerts pressure.
• The upbeat Australian jobs data reaffirms RBA’s hawkish outlook and helps limit the downside.

The AUD/USD pair extends the previous day's retracement slide from the 0.6835 region, or the highest level since February 23 and drifts lower through the Asian session on Thursday. Spot prices, however, manage to recover a few pips from the daily low touched in the last hour and bounce to the 0.6785-0.6790 region following the better-than-expected release of the Australian jobs report.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the number of employed people rose by 75.9K in May as compared to consensus estimates pointing to a reading of 15K and the loss of 4.3K in the previous month. Additional details revealed that the jobless rate unexpectedly ticked lower to 3.6% from 3.7% in April. This comes on the back of the Reserve Bank of Australia's hawkish 25 bps lift-off last week, which, in turn, benefits the Australian Dollar (AUD) and lends support to the AD/USD pair.

Spot prices, however, remain in the negative territory in the wake of a modest US Dollar (USD) strength, bolstered by the Federal Reserve's (Fed) signal that borrowing costs will increase by another 50 bps by end-December. It is worth recalling that the US central bank, as anticipated, held interest rates steady at the end of a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, though showed the intent to resume its policy tightening cycle and lifted bets for another 25 bps hike at the July FOMC policy meeting.

Apart from this, worries about a global economic downturn, particularly in China, might contribute to capping the upside for the AUD/USD pair, at least for the time being. Hence, the market focus now shifts to the Chinese macro data dump - Industrial Production, Retails Sales, Fixed Asset Investment and Unemployment Rate, due in a short while from now. Later during the early North American session, traders will take cues from the US economic docket - featuring Retail Sales, Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, the Empire State Manufacturing Index, the Philly Fed Manufacturing Index and Industrial Production figures.

Technical levels to watch