Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 3 September 2015
Japan
- Japan Services PMI 53.7 (prior 51.2) and Composite PMI 52.9 (prior 51.5)
- BOJ's Kiuchi: Chance of Japan's inflation hitting 2 pct by fiscal 2017/18 is low
- Japan data - International Transactions in Securities data
Australia and New Zealand
- Australian press: AUD may fall below US60¢ in 'benign collapse'
- Australia July Trade Balance: -2460 m (vs -3160m expected)
- Australia Retail Sales for July: -0.1% m/m (vs. expected +0.4%)
- An alternative take on the Australian economy ... "Much better than it looks"
- Australia - August Services PMI: 55.6 (prior 54.1)
- NZ data - Q2 'Value of All Buildings': +1.6% q/q (expected +0.5%, prior +1.5%)
- Australia press: 'Australian dollar forecast to hit US60 cents'
- Australia press: Q2 GDP data - "The key take-out is just how perilous things are now"
- NZD traders - Fonterra sees demand pick up when inventories wane
- Chinese President Xi announces 300,000 headcount cut to military
- IMF: ECB asset purchase program should be extended if no improvement on inflation
- Asia market holidays - China and Hong Kong both closed today
- Brazil central bank leaves benchmark interest rate unchanged
- Earlier - US Treasury's Lew says China will be held accountable on currency
- JP Morgan economist on Rosengren speech - September hike still likely
- Foreign exchange trader warned over anti-money laundering processes
- Trade ideas thread for Thursday 3 September 2015
- Goldman Sachs are bullish on China stocks ... with a caveat
China and Hong Kong were both closed for a holiday today; China remains closed tomorrow and will reopen on Monday.
With no prospect for another thrashing on Chinese share markets today, trading was more subdued in the region than it has been for a while. Regional stocks benefited from the reduced fear factor and the better performance from Wall Street on Wednesday. Japan's Nikkei, for example, closed for lunch up around 1.3%. On the other hand, the Australian index fell.
There was good FX movement.
USD/JPY kicked off in the early Tokyo morning, munching through the offers ahead of and at 120.50 that had provided a lid for it. Follow-through, though, was limited, with a sideways chop following as above 120.60 it proved offered again. A dip towards 120.30 as AUD/JPY was hit following the Australian economic data releases (see more, below) was then bought. Comments from BOJ dissenter Kiuchi were not surprising, but his bluntness that Japan would not be hitting its inflation target any time soon did raise eyebrows. (see bullets, above).
USD/JPY is trading back at its session highs as I update now.
EUR/USD lost a little ground, but the range was not large. USD/CHF was barely changed, while cable too traded in a narrow range.
AUD fell hard on the simultaneous release of retail sales and trade balance data; retail sales was particularly disappointing, falling much more than expected in July. Exports (from the trade balance data) were slightly improved, which was a small positive from the day, though. NZD was overall better bid on the day, though it had some swings from early highs.
Oil calmed somewhat from its huge swings in Europe and the US, though it did lows a little ground on the session. Gold is a net a little lower also.
Still to come ... European Central Bank meeting and Draghi's follow up press conference:
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