- RBS to sell Asian retail and commercial assets.
- Talk of chipmaker merger between NEC Electronics and Renesas
- China GDP for Q1 slows to 6.1%.
The main story of the day was the GDP number out of China. The number came in at 6.1% for Q1 with the forecast at 6.3%.
There was a lot of buying of Yen crosses throughout the morning as traders set themselves long before the China data. There was good interest in EURJPY, as Japanese account bought it up to a high just above 132.00. GBPJPY saw good buying interest as well, jumping 80 pips in a matter of minutes and the AUDUSD was kept bid on the back of some AUDJPY buying.
But all this changed as soon as the China data was released. Market was long Yen crosses, and collapsed immediately after the GDP number was released. EURJPY saw any rally sold into as it dominated proceedings, with no significant afternoon buying seen. The Yen crosses never recovered spending the rest of the day under pressure. AUDUSD was sold off from above 73c to under 7250 as Japanese accounts who were seen buying the cross in the morning exited in the afternoon. GBPUSD gave up good early gains to trade back under 1.4980 and taking out weak longs.
Ranges:
AUDUSD 7237 – 7316
EURUSD 1.3178 – 1.3267
GBPUSD 1.4967 – 1.5066
USDJPY 98.82 – 99.36
EURJPY 130.26 – 132.02
Goodluck