AUD/USD climbs to highest level in nearly three years above 0.7830

• AUD/USD is rising sharply after closing in the green on Thursday.
• US Dollar Index continues to push lower on Friday.
• Focus shits to preliminary Manufacturing and Services PMI data from US.

The AUD/USD pair registered small daily gains on Thursday and stayed relatively quiet during the Asian trading hours on Friday. With the greenback struggling to find demand, however, the pair gained traction in the early European session and jumped to its highest level since March 2018 at 0.7839. As of writing, the pair was up 0.9% on the day at 0.7837.

USD remains on the back foot

Earlier in the day, the data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that Retail Sales in January rose by 0.6% on a monthly basis and missed the market expectation for an increase of 2%. Nevertheless, this report was largely ignored by the market participants.

The positive shift seen in risk sentiment seems to be weighing on the greenback on Friday. Reflecting the broad-based USD weakness, the US Dollar Index is currently down 0.36% on the day at 90.26. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Futures are up 0.3% on the day, suggesting that risk flows are likely to continue to dominate the financial markets in the second half of the day.

Later in the day, the IHS Markit will release February's preliminary Services and Manufacturing PMI reports for the US. January Existing Home Sales data will be featured in the US economic docket as well.

Technical levels to watch for