AUD/USD holds gains ahead of Powell’s speech

The AUD/USD bulls are hanging following a significant strong move to the upside as China’s stimulus boosted risk sentiment and the proxy AUD.

The Jackson Hole is now the main focus across financial markets. The AUD/USD pair is 1% higher on the day as the US dollar continues to find sellers ahead of a keynote speech from the Fed Chair, Jerome Powell. At the time of writing, AUD/USD is trading at 0.6976 and has been moving between a low of 0.6902 and a high of 0.6991.

The Australian and New Zealand dollars were trying to pick up on Thursday as a buoyant US dollar paused for breath amid caution ahead of the US Fed’s Jackson Hole conference this week. The antipodeans were supported further as China’s stimulus announcement in the Tokyo session boosted risk sentiment.

China announced a massive CNY1 trln stimulus package to help shore up the economy. The State Council outlined a 19-point package that is mostly focused on infrastructure spending, including another CNY300 bln that state banks can invest in infrastructure projects which comes on top of another CNY300 bln that was already announced in June.