AUD/USD drifting lower ahead of RBA minutes

• RBA to June meeting minutes on Tuesday
• UoM inflation expectations decline

The Australian dollar has started the week with losses. AUD/USD is trading at 0.6848, down 0.39%. The Australian dollar gained 1.95% last week and has soared 5.2% in the month of June.

Markets await RBA minutes

The Reserve Bank of Australia releases the minutes of the June meeting on Tuesday. At the meeting, the Bank decided to raise rates by 0.25%, bringing the benchmark rate to 4.10%. This surprised the markets, which had expected the central bank to pause. Governor Lowe continued his hawkish stance after the decision, defending the interest rate as necessary since “upside risks to the inflation outlook have increased”.

Lowe has his hands full with sticky inflation, which rose in April from 6.3% to 6.8% y/y, above the consensus of 6.4%. The core rate fell from 6.9% to 6.5%, but this is much too high for the RBA, which has a target of 2%. The RBA has projected that inflation will not fall to 2% until mid-2025, leaving little doubt that the current rate-hike cycle is not close to wrapping up. The minutes should provide insights about the rate hike and what the central bank has planned moving forward. The RBA meets next on July 4th.

The Fed is also very concerned with inflation but took a different approach, as it paused at last week’s meeting after ten consecutive hikes. Fed policymakers got some good news on Friday, as UoM inflation expectations eased to 3.3% in June, down sharply from 4.2% in May and lower than the 4.1% consensus. Inflation expectations haven’t been this low since March 2021 and this is another indication that inflation is heading lower. The UoM Consumer Sentiment report climbed from 59.2 to 63.9, due to lower inflation expectations as well as the resolution of the banking crisis, according to the report.

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AUD/USD Technical

• AUD /USD tested support at 0.6836 earlier. Next, there is support at 0.6729
• 0.6940 and 0.7004 are the next resistance lines

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