AUD/USD Stalls Below 0.7100 As Ceasefire Euphoria Fades

AUD/USD gave back a portion of Wednesday's sharp rally, settling around 0.7050 after surging over 1% earlier in the session. The pair spiked to a three-week high near 0.7085 on news of a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran, but momentum faded quickly as markets questioned the durability of the deal, with price pulling back into a tight range of small-bodied candles heading into the Asian open.

The ceasefire, which includes an agreement by Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, initially crushed safe-haven demand for the US Dollar and sent risk-sensitive currencies sharply higher. However, the deal is already proving tenuous; reports suggest neither side has committed to the underlying 10-point framework, and traders are treating the two-week window as a countdown rather than a resolution. On the Australian Dollar side, the domestic calendar is functionally empty for the remainder of the week. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) hiked the cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.10% at its March meeting, and markets are pricing the possibility of further tightening at the May decision as elevated energy costs keep inflation pressures alive.

With no local data to trade, attention shifts entirely to the US: Thursday brings the core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index for February and fourth-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while Friday delivers March Consumer Price Index (CPI) data alongside the University of Michigan (UoM) consumer sentiment and inflation expectations surveys.

AUD/USD 15-minute chart

Technical Analysis

In the fifteen-minute chart, AUD/USD trades at 0.7047. The pair holds above the 200-period Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at 0.7005, which suggests a mildly bullish intraday bias as price respects this underlying dynamic support. The Stochastic RSI near 71 hints at firm but increasingly stretched upside momentum, leaving room for consolidation or a shallow pullback while the price action stays supported above the 200-EMA.

On the downside, immediate support is seen at the 200-period EMA around 0.7005, where buyers would be expected to defend the short-term uptrend if a corrective dip unfolds. As long as AUD/USD remains above this level, the near-term structure favors further recovery attempts, with any pause likely to develop as sideways consolidation rather than a deeper reversal in the very short term.