Forex news for Asia trading Tuesday 13 September 2016
- Australia - Government and opposition strike deal on $6.3bn budget savings
- High-speed nonbank market makers triple FX volumes in past 3 years
- China Stats bureau says foundations for economic stabilisation not solid enough
- US CEOs see the economy slow in H2 & a deceleration in hiring
- UK CPI data due today - preview
- China data beats expectations - responses
- China August Industrial Production: 6.3% y/y (vs. 6.2% expected) + more data
- Australia Business Confidence 6 (vs. prior 4) and Conditions 7 (vs. prior 9)
- PBOC sets USD/CNY mid-point today at 6.6726 (vs. yesterday at 6.6908)
- UK inflation data (August) due Tuesday morning (UK time)
- Brainard got her comments in before the FOMC blackout. Here's what that means.
- Japan data - Business Sentiment Index for Q3
- China data coming up today - industrial production, retail sales and more
- Australia data - ANZ weekly consumer confidence: 118.1 (prior 114.3)
- WSJ's Hilsenrath: Next FOMC meeting 'a close call', but Fed lean to waiting
- China press: Economic growth may drop below 6% around 2018
- More from RBA's Kent: Would hesitate to say where the AUD should be
- NZ data - August food prices +1.3% m/m (prior month -0.2%)
- RBAs Kent: AUD did not fall as much as implied by terms of trade
- Goldman Sachs has 3 reasons why the bond rout is going to get worse
- Recap of Brainard: "Fed looks unlikely to hike next week after Brainard warning"
- Trade ideas thread - Tuesday 13 September 2016
- US Treasury Secretary Lew: US core inflation creeping up, still low
I am able to confirm that the rumours FX markets were open for trade today are true. But only just.
A day of tight ranges despite a decent dose of data from China and some from Australia.
The most focus was the Chinese data, we got industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment for August; with beats on expectations nearly for all of the results. If the data is to be taken at face value it confirms a degree of stabilisation in the Chinese economy. Questions, as always, persist on the data veracity. And the point that much of the improvement seems to have come from more stimulus without much enthusiasm from the private sector needs to be made. The recovery remains fragile while this is the case.
Data also from Australia, August business confidence and conditions. The results were mixed but remain above or at long-term averages (see bullets above for more detail on this and on the Chinese data) .
The PBOC used 28-day reverse repos in addition to the 7 and 14 dayers in their open market operations today.
And so to the currencies.
USD/JPY slid early, from highs around 101.90+ the drop was to under 101.50 before stabilising. AUD/JPY sellers alongside took the AUD/USD lower, it had been very quiet above 0.7560 but dipped toward 0.7540. The data from Australia and then China caused some volatility in a small range only and as I update AUD/USD is just under 0.7550.
EUR, CHF and GBP are all little changed against the USD. The lower USD/JPY on the session weighed on yen crosses.
Gold added a few dollars above USD1330, oil dropped a few cents.
Regional equities:
- Nikkei +0.30%
- Shanghai -0.18%
- HK +0.82%
- ASX +0.11%
Still to come - UK August CPI at 0830GMT
- UK CPI data due today - preview Barclays preview
- UK inflation data (August) due Tuesday morning (UK time)
