AUD/USD drops below 0.74 as Australia building permits tanked 19.9%

The Aussie dollar is being offered after the horrible Australia building permits number overshadowed the rise in the NAB Business Conditions and Confidence indices to multi-year highs.

The AUD/USD dropped to a session low of 0.7386 after the recovery from Friday’s low of 0.7368 ran out of steam near 0.7420 in early Asia.

The building permits dropped 19.9% y/y in March compared to a 4.9% drop seen in February. The data showed the seasonally adjusted estimate for total dwellings approved fell 13.4% in March after rising for two months.

The housing number overshadowed NAB data, which pointed to solid levels of business conditions across the industries and states.

Despite the weak housing data, the Australia 10-year government bond yield has held up well, now trading 2.5 basis points higher on the day around 2.687%. However, the resilience in the yield has failed to support the AUD.

AUD/USD Technical Levels

A break below 0.7368 (previous day’s low) would open doors for a sell-off to 0.7311 (Nov low) and 0.73 (zero levels). On the other hand, a break above 0.7434 (5-DMA) would expose 0.7465 (10-DMA) and 0.7491 (Apr 19 low).