AUD/USD holds gains above 0.6800 as Fed sequential large rate cut bets rise

• AUD/USD grips gains above 0.6800 as investors see one more large Fed interest rate cut.
•  Investors await Fed Harker’s speech for fresh guidance on interest rates.
• The RBA is unlikely to cut interest rates this year.

The AUD/USD pair clings to gains above the round-level support of 0.6800 in Friday’s European session. The Aussie asset remains broadly firm amid growing speculation that the Federal Reserve (Fed) could deliver one more bumper interest rate cut in its monetary policy meeting in November.

The Fed pivoted to policy normalization on Wednesday when he announced a 50 basis points (bps) rate cut decision, pushing interest rates to 4.75%-5.00%. The signal was clear that the Fed is focused in preventing further deterioration in the labor market conditions. On the interest rate guidance, the Fed dot plot shows that policymakers see the federal fund rate heading to 4.4% by the year-end, which indicates the central bank will cut rates further by at least 25 basis bps.

However, traders see a 75-bps decline in the remaining two policy meetings in November and December, in which one interest rate decision would be a 50-bps rate cut. According to the CME FedWatch tool, the likelihood of the Fed reducing interest rates by 50 bps to 4.25%-4.50% in November is 43%, higher than the 37% recorded on Thursday.

In today’s session, investors will keenly focus on the speech from Philadelphia Fed Bank President Patrick Harker’s speech at 18:00 GMT for fresh interest rate guidance.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the Australian Dollar (AUD) remains firm as upbeat Aussie Employment data weigh on market expectations for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to start reducing interest rates this year. The Australian Employment report for August showed that employers hired 47.5K fresh workers, higher than estimates of 25K but almost similar to the prior release of 48.9K, downwardly revised from 58.2K.

Meanwhile, the Australian Dollar didn’t react much to People’s Bank of China’s (PBoC) interest rate decision announced in the Asian session in which the central bank left its one-year and five-year Loan Prime Rates (LPRs) unchanged at 3.35% and 3.85%, respectively, as expected. Historically, any economic development in China influences the Australian Dollar significantly being close trading partners.