AUD/USD off lows, but struggling to move past 0.79 handle

An offered tone around the greenback helped the AUD/USD pair to bounce off session low level of 0.7870 and recover part of previous session's slump from two-week tops.

The US Dollar remained on the back-foot even as the White House quashed rumours amid growing doubts over the Trump administration's ability to push forward pro-growth economic policies, especially after the latest rumours that National Economic Council Chairman Gary Cohn was set to resign.

Adding to this, growing market consensus that the Fed might not raise interest rates again in 2017 further extended support to higher-yielding currencies and collaborated to the pair's modest uptick through Asian session on the last trading day of the week. 

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Meanwhile, the prevalent positive trading sentiment around copper prices remained supportive of the pair's recovery move. However, a fresh wave of a global risk-off environment, which tends to underpin the greenback's safe-haven demand against its Australian counterpart, kept a lid on the up-move and the pair struggled to move back above the 0.7900 handle. 

With a relatively lighter US economic docket, featuring the only release of Prelim UoM Consumer Sentiment Index, broader market risk sentiment would remain a key determinant of the pair's movement on the last trading day of the week. 

Technical levels to watch

Immediate support remains near 0.7870 level, below which the pair is likely to break below mid-0.7800s and head towards testing its next support near the 0.7825-20 region. On the upside, momentum above the 0.7900 handle could get extended towards 0.7925 level, above which the pair is likely to aim back towards retesting 0.7960-65 strong horizontal resistance.