AUD/USD fails to capitalize on the post-NFP upswing, slips back closer to 0.7100 handle

   •  Headline NFP betters expectations, while average earnings disappoint USD bulls.
   •  US-China trade optimism might continue to underpin and help limit downside.

The AUD/USD pair continued with its struggle to make it weekly tops and quickly retreated back to the lower end of its daily trading range, closer to the 0.7100 handle.

The pair did get a minor lift and jumped back to the 0.7130 supply zone in reaction to mixed US monthly jobs report for March, showing that average hourly earnings recorded a modest growth of 0.1% m/m and yearly rate also decelerated to 3.2% as compared to 3.4% previous.

The negative reading, to a large extent, was negated by stronger headline NFP print, showing that job creation bounced back nicely in March after disappointing in the previous month. In fact, the US economy added 196K new jobs and the unemployment rate held stable during the reported month.

Meanwhile, the US Dollar bulls seemed rather unimpressed by today's mixed US employment details, which coupled with the latest optimism over progress in the US-China trade talks extended some support to the China-proxy Australian Dollar and might help limit any meaningful downside.

With the closely watched US macro data out of the way, it would now be interesting to see if the pair is able to find any buying interest at lower levels or repeated failures near the 0.7125-30 region marks the resumption of the near-term depreciating move amid expectations for an RBA rate cut.

Technical levels to watch

Any subsequent slide below the 0.7100 handle might trigger some aggressive technical selling pressure and accelerate the slide towards the 0.7055 intermediate support before the pair eventually drops to challenge the key 0.70 psychological mark. On the flip side, the 0.7130 region remains a strong hurdle to conquer, above which the pair is likely to dart towards reclaiming the 0.7200 round figure mark.