The Aussie climbed to $US1.0315 yesterday, its highest since it became a free-floating currency in 1983, as recent intervention by industrialised economies to weaken the yen reinvigorated carry trades, by which investors borrow low-interest Japanese yen and sell them for higher-yielding assets such as the Australian dollar.

Also boosting the Aussie rally, traders said, was market chatter that insurance payments for December's Queensland floods would boost repatriation flows. But the currency shed yesterday's gains to fall below Friday's close on a 1.3 per cent drop in the Reuters-Jefferies CRB Index.

In a recent trading snapshot, the Aussie was quoted at $US1.0236. The short-term technical outlook for Aussie/US dollar is turning increasingly bearish after a bearish doji shooting-star candlestick pattern was completed yesterday. The daily slow stochastic measure has turned bearish at the overbought level, suggesting a short-term top may have been set at yesterday's $1.0315 high.

The Aussie in the near term may test support at $US1.0171, the 23.6 per cent Fibonacci correction of the advance from the March 17 low of $US0.9704 to the latest high. An extension of the fall would target $US1.0082, the 38.2 per cent correction. However, the near-term bearish Aussie/US dollar outlook would be negated on a global day close above $US1.0315.