AUD/USD Technicals – Strong Bearishness Seen In Thin Trade

Downtrend in AUD/USD is strong with prices gaping lower this morning, continuing the decline that started last Friday following the failure to break 0.893 resistance. What is even more impressive is that this decline seems to be running itself without any new announcements/economic news releases that could have triggered additional bearish sentiment. Furthermore, risk appetite seems to be building up, not decreasing with Australia’s main stock index ASX steadily around 100 points higher than 1 week ago. Some may point to the strengthening USD as the reason for AUD/USD’s decline, but looking at EUR/USD and GBP/USD which have rallied recently, this is not a valid explanation. It is clear that AUD/USD is going lower more on AUD weakness.

Hourly Chart

This is actually dangerous for the bears right now as this strong bearish sentiment occurred when the market is thin and the likelihood of irrationality is strong – increasing the chances of a pullback should normal trading resume. Stochastic indicator agrees as well with Stoch curve already deeply within Oversold region and favouring a bullish pullback in the near term.

That being said, it should be noted that prices are around 40 pips away from 0.888 significant support turned resistance. Hence, even if the pullback does happen, overall bearish bias will not be invalidated and we could see even stronger bearish movements coming in early 2014.

Daily Chart

Daily Chart echoes the same concerns of the Short-Term chart. Firstly, price did not manage to tag Channel Top, and considering that price is still trading around/above July’s swing low, there is a likelihood of price rebounding here towards Channel Top. As this move will not invalidate current bearish pressure, it is unlikely that technical bears will want to resist any pullback effort from here, increasing the chances of this pullback. Even if prices break 0.885, we could still find support from the latest 2013 swing low formed in December.

Given that volume is thin, any breakout attempt need to be treated with a huge grain of salt as it may not be representative of true market sentiment (even though AUD/USD is bearish both fundamentally and technically). Hence given current uncertainty, traders who do no have any positions right now may be better off waiting for stronger signals when normal trading resumes.

More Links:
EUR/USD – Hint Of Bearish Bias But Don’t Bet On It
GBP/USD – Post-Christmas Rally Continues As Pound Soars
USD/JPY – Little Movement As Japan Posts Mixed Numbers

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