AUD/USD rebounds modestly from multi-week lows, trades above 0.6950

• RBA Governor Lowe's dovish comments weigh on AUD on Thursday.
• Durable Goods Orders in US rose more than expected in June.
• US Dollar Index posts small losses following a jump toward 98.

After closing the previous four trading days in the negative territory, the ASUD/USD pair extended its slide during the Asian trading hours and touched its lowest level in two weeks at 0.6950. However, the pair was able to find support at that level and is now trading at 0.6965, still down 0.17% on a daily basis.

Earlier today, Reserve Bank of Australia Governor (RBA) Lowe reiterated that they were prepared to ease the monetary policy further if demand were to disappoint and put the AUD under renewed selling pressure. "It's reasonable to expect an extended period of low interest rates," Lowe added and explained that global trade disputes were making businesses reluctant to invest. 

In the second half of the day, the sharp upsurge witnessed in the EUR/USD pair following European Central Bank President Draghi's neutral tone made it difficult for the USD to outperform its rivals and allowed the pair to pull away from its lows.

Upbeat data help USD find demand

The US Dollar Index, which came within a touching distance of the 98 handle on the back of upbeat data earlier in the session, was last virtually unchanged on the day near 97.70.

The US Census Bureau today announced that Durable Goods Orders increased by 2% on a monthly basis in June to beat the market expectation of 0.7%. Additionally, the weekly Jobless Claims came in at 206K to better analysts' estimate of 219K.

There won't be any macroeconomic data releases from Australia on Friday and markets will pay close attention to GDP data from the US ahead of next week's critical FOMC meeting.

Technical levels to watch for