The AUD/USD pair started the new week on the back foot and dropped to a daily low of 0.7331 before going into a consolidation phase. As of writing, the pair was down 0.4% on the day 0.7340. Earlier in the day, the data from China revealed that Retail Sales in July rose by 8.5% on a yearly basis. This reading missed the market expectation for an increase of 11.5% by a wide margin. Moreover, Industrial Production expanded by 6.4% in the same period, compared to analysts' estimate of 7.8%. These disappointing figures weighed on the China-proxy AUD at the start of the week.
On the other hand, the US Dollar Index, which fell sharply on Friday amid plunging US Treasury bond yields, is moving in a relatively tight range above 92.50 on Monday, allowing AUD's valuation to drive AUD/USD's movements. Later in the session, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Empire State Manufacturing Index will be the only data featured in the US economic docket. On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia will release the minutes of its August meeting.