AUD/USD preserves daily gains as DXY struggles below 92

• Retail sales in Australia surpasses expectations.
• PPI from the U.S. disappoints.
• DXY fails to hold above 92.

After gaining traction during the Asian session, the AUD/USD pair is holding on to its daily gains on Wednesday as the greenback struggles to find demand amid disappointing data from the U.S. As of writing, the pair was trading at 0.7873, adding 0.38% on the day.

Earlier today, the data from Australia showed that retails sales increased by 1.2% in November following October's 0.5% growth and beat the market expectation of 0.4%. On the back of the data, the AUD/USD added more than 30 pips in a matter of minutes and advanced to its best level in more than three months at 0.7886. However, with the US Dollar Index spending the first half of the day above the 92 mark, the pair failed to extend its gains and went into a consolidation phase near its daily highs. 

After easing down to 0.7860 ahead of the NA session start, the pair regained traction as the dismal PPI data from the U.S. weighed on the buck. On a monthly basis in December, the core PPI contracted by 0.1%, dragging the annual rate down to 2.3% from 2.4%. As of writing, the DXY was down 0.43% at 91.71.

On Friday, Australia's biggest trading partner, China is going to release the trade balance data. A positive reading could provide an additional boost to the pair during the Asian session.

Technical levels to consider

The pair could face the initial hurdle at 0.7885 (daily high) ahead of 0.7965 (Sep. 24 high) and 0.8000 (psychological level). On the downside, supports are located at 0.7815/10 (Jan. 4 low), 0.7745 (200-DMA) and 0.7650 (Dec. 21 low). With today's rise, the RSI indicator on the daily graph rose above the 70 mark, suggesting that the pair could make a corrective slide before the next leg up.