The Australian dollar climbed to a one-week high on Tuesday as investor sentiment was boosted by corona-virus vaccine hopes and RBA minutes release. Risk assets were buoyed overnight by news that Moderna’s MRNA.O COVID-19 vaccine recorded a 94.5% efficacy rate in preliminary numbers from a large late-stage clinical trial.

NAB analysts wrote in a note that “The Moderna news overnight is the second positive vaccine news following Pfizer/BioNTech results last week” Arguably, however, Moderna’s preliminary results are even better and provide a massive boost to the fight against the pandemic,” they added.

After Moderna’s vaccine trial update, Johnson & Johnson also mentioned beginning the late-stage testing of its two-dose vaccine.

Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) released minutes of its Nov. 3 policy meeting in which it said it was ready to provide yet more policy stimulus if needed. The RBA had trimmed the cash rate to 0.1% and launched a A$100 billion quantitative easing (QE) programme over six months. This latest monetary policy meeting minutes suggest the policymaker’s readiness to offer further easy money while turning down any more immediate rate cuts and a clear ‘NO’ to the negative rates.

Not only the RBA minutes and COVID-19 vaccine but global market optimism concerning Brexit also favor the bulls. The Sun came out with the news suggesting that the UK’s Chief Brexit Negotiator David Frost indicates the Brexit trade deal between the European Union (EU) and Britain during the early next week.

Looking ahead, updates concerning the covid vaccine and the virus news can offer fresh direction to the AUD/USD traders before the speech from RBA Assistant Governor Guy Debelle. Following that, the US Retail Sales for October, expected 0.5% MoM versus 1.9% prior, will be important to note.

AUD/USD 4 Hour Chart:

Support: 0.7279 (S1), 0.7240 (S2), 0.7216 (S3).

Resistance: 0.7343 (R1), 0.7366 (R2), 0.7406 (R3).

The Covid 19 vaccine optimism and RBA minutes favors Aussie against greenback. We expect a bullish trend for AUD/USD.