AUD/USD steadies below 0.7150 ahead of RBA event

• US Dollar Index goes into consolidation near 95.
• Wall Street trades mixed on Monday.
• Coming up: The RBA is scheduled to release its October meeting minutes.

After spending the Asian session in a tight range a little above the 0.71 mark, the AUD/USD pair gained traction and rose to a fresh daily high of 0.7150 before starting to consolidate its daily gains in the NA session. As of writing, the pair was trading at 0.7135, adding 0.3% on a daily basis. 

The USD's market valuation on Monday seems to be the primary driver of the pair's price action on Monday. The US Dollar Index, which staged a modest recovery on Friday, started the new week under pressure and extended its losses after the data from the U.S. showed that retail sales in September increased by 0.1% on a monthly basis to fall short of the analysts' estimate of 0.5%. After dipping below the 95 mark for a short time, the DXY retraced a small part of its daily losses and was last seen at 95.08, where it was down 0.16% on the day.

Other data from the U.S. showed that the NY Fed's Empire State Manufacturing Index improved to 21.1 in October from 19 in September to reveal healthy activity in the regional manufacturing sector.

Earlier in the day, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal,  the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) Ian Harper argued that a weaker AUD would continue to boost the growth. During the early trading hours of the Asian session, the RBA is going to release the minutes of its October meeting, at which they decided to keep the policy rate unchanged at 1.5% as expected.

Technical levels to consider

The initial resistance for the pair aligns at 0.7150 (20-DMA) ahead of 0.7200 (50-DMA/psychological level) and 0.7240 (Oct. 2 high). On the downside, supports are located at 0.7100 (daily low), 0.7065 (Oct. 4 low) and 0.7000 (psychological level).