AUD/USD in search of a firm direction, range-bound around 0.75 handle

The AUD/USD pair continued with its struggle to register any meaningful recovery beyond the 0.7500 handle and seesawed between tepid gains / minor losses within 25-30 pips narrow trading band.

Today's release of Chinese inflation figures, showing CPI grew 0.9% y-o-y and PPI grew 7.6% in March, did little to provide any fresh impetus to the China-proxy Australian Dollar. Meanwhile, a weaker reading from the Australian Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment could be one of the factors weighing on the major. 

On the other hand, the market seems to have shrugged off broad based US Dollar retracement, with weaker tone surrounding commodity space, especially copper, acting as a major driver for the commodity-linked currency - Aussie. 

Later during the day, the major is likely to be influence by a scheduled speech by the US President Donald Trump. However, major near-term trend is likely to be determined by Thursday's key Australian jobs data and Chinese trade balance data.

Technical levels to watch

Immediate support is pegged near 0.7475 level, below which the pair is likely to accelerate the slide towards 0.7425-20 horizontal support ahead of the 0.7400 handle. On the upside, a follow through momentum above 0.7500-0.7510 immediate resistance is likely to get extended towards 0.7535 level ahead of the 0.7555 important hurdle (200-day SMA).