NZD/USD faces rejection at 0.73 handle, retreats from 1-1/2 week tops

   •  USD bearish pressure eases on receding US-China trade tensions.
   •  Weaker Chinese data prompts some long-unwinding trade.

The NZD/USD pair came under some selling pressure on Tuesday and retreated from 1-1/2 week tops, eroding part of previous session's strong gains. 

The pair's ongoing bullish momentum now seems to have faced rejection at the 0.7300 handle, with the slowdown in China’s industrial profits and easing US Dollar bearish pressure prompting some long-unwinding trade near 50-day SMA. 

This coupled with some renewed uptick in the US Treasury bond yields, which tends to drive flows away from higher-yielding currencies - like the Kiwi, exerted some additional pressure and collaborated to the pair's offered tone. 

However, positive trading sentiment around commodity space extended some support to the commodity-linked New-Zealand Dollar and might now help limit any deeper losses, at least for the time being.

Hence, it would prudent to wait for a strong follow-through weakness before confirming that the recent bounce from near 2-1/2 month lows is over and the pair is all set to resume with its prior depreciating move.

Later during the early NA session, the release of Conference Board's US Consumer Confidence Index would now be looked upon for some fresh impetus ahead of Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic's scheduled speech and the release of ANZ Business Confidence index. 

Technical levels to watch

A follow-through weakness is likely to get extended towards 0.7260-55 area, below which the pair seems to head back towards retesting the 0.7200 handle. On the upside, sustained move beyond the 0.7300 handle could lift the pair towards 0.7335 intermediate hurdle ahead of the 0.7355 supply zone.