AUD/USD refreshes session tops near mid-0.7900s

A fresh wave of greenback selling pressure has emerged over the past hour or so, lifting the AUD/USD pair fresh session tops, in the region of 0.7945-50 band. 

Fading optimism over the US President Donald Trump's pro-growth economic agenda, coupled with growing market consensus that the Fed might refrain from raising interest rates further in 2017 kept the US Dollar bulls on the back-foot and helped the pair to bounce off session low level of 0.7910.

Adding to this, a softer US Treasury bond yields, primarily led by the risk-off environment, was also seen driving flows towards higher-yielding currencies and collaborated to the pair's up-move since the mid-European session. 

Meanwhile, the prevalent positive tone around the commodity space, especially copper, provided an additional boost to commodity-linked currencies, including the Australian Dollar, and remained supportive of the pair's move back closer to a two-week high touched last Thursday.

   •  AUD: Pullback in base metals poses downside risks – ING

On the economic data front, the release of Chicago Fed National Activity Index, coming in at –0.01 in July from +0.16 in June, did little to improve the already weaker sentiment surrounding the greenback. 

Technical outlook

Valeria Bednarik, Chief Analyst at FXStreet writes: "The short term picture, according to the 4 hours chart,  is neutral-to-bullish, as the price is above a bullish 20 SMA, whilst the Momentum indicator aims modestly higher around its 100 level, whilst the RSI indicator heads nowhere, but around 58. The mentioned  high is the main resistance and the level to surpass to see the pair advancing up to 0.8000 later on the day, while gains beyond this last seem unlikely amid the limited volume."