FX.co ★ Global macro overview for 21/02/2017

Global macro overview for 21/02/2017:

The Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes from the Reserve bank of Australia had provided a few interesting remarks regarding the economy and monetary policy. The RBA maintains its view that the economy will grow around 3% annually over the next few years, as inflation gradually returns above its 2% target. Moreover, the minutes said, that the 0.5% contraction in real GDP in the third quarter reflected "some temporary factors, including disruptions to coal supply and bad weather and this weakness, was not expected to have continued into the December quarter and the forecasts for quarterly GDP growth were little changed." It is worth to mention here about the recent trade deficit data from Australia, as the falling deficit on the current account will strengthen the Aussie above the ceiling of 0.8000 USD. Thanks to the boom in commodity markets such as coal and iron ore, which are important export commodities of Australia, the current account deficit declined in the fourth quarter to 1.5% of GDP, compared with a year earlier noted down 5.5%. Nevertheless, Aussie might still be undervalued as it strengthened only 6.2% during the last 12 months, while at the same time, the Russian Ruble gained against the Dollar 29.6%, the Brazilian Real appreciated by 27.5% and the South African Rand recorded 16.3% upsurge. In conclusion, the Aussie is lagging here and might skyrocket higher if the commodity market uptrend prevails.

Let's now take a look at the AUD/USD technical picture at the H4 time frame chart. The bearish divergence has made the price to correct towards the level of 0.7660 at the time of writing, but there is still a chance for a further decline towards the next support at the level of 0.7606 before the uptrend resumes.