With covid vaccinations likely to kick off at the end of the ongoing month, Australian Prime Minister Mr. Scott Morrison said Thursday that the government would buy another 10 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine. He also said that the country now has access to 150 million doses of the vaccine. Its worth mentioning that AstraZeneca’s jabs will get injected as early as March in Australia. Among other vaccine updates, Novavax is expected to supply 6 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine candidates to Switzerland.

As a boost to the Aussie,  Australia’s trade surplus rose to a six-month high in December as exports of iron ore to China easily weathered diplomatic squalls between the two countries, while coal shipments found new buyers beyond the world’s second-largest economy. China’s reliance on steel-intensive infrastructure and construction to sustain economic growth means it has little choice but to keep importing Australian iron ore, even as prices for the mineral hit multi-year highs. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics out on Thursday showed goods exports to China jumped 21% in December to a six-month high of A$13.3 billion, with iron ore up sharply by both value and volume.

Elsewhere, Australian shares were set to snap a three-day winning streak on Thursday as miners and healthcare stocks eased, while investors awaited more risk-supportive economic outlook from the central bank. The Reserve Bank of Australia, which is slated to provide updated economic forecasts on Friday, earlier this week expanded its bond-buying programme and it also kept its cash rate near zero, even though the A$2 trillion economy has performed better than expected after largely controlling its COVID-19 outbreak.

On the other hand, Japanese shares snapped a three-session rally on Thursday, mainly led by declines in chip-related shares as investors booked profits, while electronics and media giant Sony jumped more than 9% on upbeat third-quarter earnings.

Meanwhile, in the US, the political environment has also made some progress in a recent vote whereby  ”the Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives approved a budget outline on Wednesday that would allow them to pass President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid plan without Republican support,” Reuters reported.

AUD/JPY 4 Hour Chart:

Support: 79.84 (S1), 79.67 (S2), 79.53 (S3).

Resistance: 80.15 (R1), 80.29 (R2), 80.46 (R3).

As all the factors contribute to strengthen Aussie against the yen, we expect a bullish trend for AUD/JPY.