AUD/USD off highs, back around 0.8100 mark

The AUD/USD pair trimmed some of its early strong gains and retreated around 30-35 pips from fresh 28-month highs touched earlier today.

The pair continued gaining traction on Friday and jumped to its highest level since May 2015 amid an intense selling pressure surrounding the US Dollar. Adding to this, upbeat Chinese imports data, despite of slightly weaker trade surplus figures, continued benefitting the China-proxy Australian Dollar. 

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However, a sharp retracement in copper prices failed to provide any fresh bullish impetus. This coupled with abating USD selling bias further collaborated to the pair's retracement back to the 0.8100 handle.

With an empty US economic docket, the US Treasury bond yields dynamics, which derives demand for higher-yielding currencies - like the Aussie, might turn out to be an exclusive driver for the pair's movement on the last trading day of the week. 

Technical levels to watch

On a sustained retracement back below the 0.8100 handle, the pair is likely to correct back towards 0.8075-70 support area en-route an important horizontal resistance break point, now turned support, near the 0.8030-20 region.

Meanwhile, on the upside, momentum above 0.8125 level could get extended towards May 2015 swing highs resistance near the 0.8160-65 region, above which the pair is likely to make an attempt towards reclaiming the 0.8200 handle.