AUD/USD retreats farther from yesterday’s 1-1/2 week tops

   •  Renewed trade-war fears prompt a follow-through selling.
   •  Weaker commodity prices add to the downward pressure.
   •  Investors eye NFP/Powell’s speech for fresh directional impetus.

The AUD/USD pair extended previous session's retracement slide from 1-1/2 week tops and traded with a mild negative bias for the second consecutive session on Friday.

The US President Donald Trump's fresh order to consider new tariffs on China triggered a fresh wave of global risk aversion trade on Friday and boosted the US Dollar's safe-haven appeal against the perceived riskier Australian Dollar. 

This coupled with heavy selling around commodity space, especially copper further dented demand for the commodity-linked Australian Dollar and collaborated to the pair's weaker tone on the last trading day of the week. 

Meanwhile, some renewed weakness in the US Treasury bond yields, led by risk-off mood, extended some support and helped limit deeper losses for higher-yielding currencies - like the Aussie. 

With today’s fall, the pair has now turned negative for the week as investors now look forward to the keenly watched US monthly jobs report (NFP), which along with the Fed Chair Jerome Powell's scheduled speech should help determine the near-term trajectory.

Technical levels to watch

Immediate support remains near the 0.7660-50 region, below which the fall is likely to accelerate towards 0.7625 intermediate support en-route the 0.7600 handle. On the upside, the 0.7690-0.7700 region now seems to have emerged as an immediate hurdle, which if cleared might trigger a short-covering bounce back towards 0.7720-25 area ahead of the 0.7745-50 supply zone.