AUD/USD fails near 200-DMA, retreats back below 0.78 handle

   •  A modest USD rebound/hawkish Fedspeak prompts some long-unwinding trade.
   •  An uptick in the US bond yields partly offset bullish commodity prices.

The AUD/USD pair stalled its bullish momentum ahead of the very important 200-day SMA hurdle and has now retreated over 20-pips from session tops. 

A minor uptick in the US Treasury bond, which tends to drive flows away from higher-yielding currencies - like the Aussie, coupled with a pickup in the US Dollar demand collaborated towards keeping a lid on any follow-through up-move for the major.

The latest leg of retracement slide from an intraday high level of 0.7810, near one-month tops, could be attributed to hawkish comments by Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren, which now seems to have prompted some long-unwinding trade. 

Meanwhile, a mildly positive trading sentiment around commodity space, especially copper, continued underpinning demand for the commodity-linked Australian Dollar and might now help limit any meaningful downside, at least for the time being.

Traders now look forward to the US economic docket, featuring the second-tier releases of Prelim UoM Consumer Sentiment and JOLTS Job Openings data, in order to grab some short-term opportunities on the last trading day of the week. 

Technical levels to watch

Any subsequent retracement is likely to find support near the 0.7760 ara, below which the pair could slide back towards 0.7730 intermediate support en-route the 0.7700 handle. On the flip side, the 0.7710-15 region (200-day SMA) might continue to act as an immediate resistance, above which the pair seems more likely to accelerate the up-move towards 0.7870-75 supply zone before eventually darting towards the 0.7900 handle.