Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 6 October 2016
Fed speakers:
- More on Fischer's low neutral rate a sign of potential economic trouble
- Fed's Fischer: Evidence that natural rate of interest has fallen
- Fed's Lacker: A strong jobs report will bolster the case for a US rate hike
- Lacker's surprising comments on political pressure at the Fed.
- Fed's Lacker in Q&A: The growth of US debt at current levels is not worrisome
- Fed's Lacker speech - no comment on economic outlook nor monetary policy
And ...
- UBS on Australian trade - export values to surge, to narrow trade deficit sharply
- ANZ on Friday's US nonfarm payroll, what it will mean for the AUD
- HSBC still looking for a PBOC RRR cut this year, and more next
- Fitch on China housing - city-specific policies to counter price pressures
- China on holiday - no yuan 'fix'. Banks' China GDP forecasts instead
- Brexit - here's more on fin min Hammond's trip to US banks
- Australia housing market - 50 'high risk' areas
- Australia - Trade balance for August: Deficit of 2010m (expected -2300m)
- Twitter shares lower in after hours - reports that Google will not be a bidder
- UK fin min Hammond: Wants Brexit deal including access to EU markets
- Japan press: "Corporate Japan tries to deflect pressure on wage hikes"
- HSBC on the AUD and RBA (and the Trump Clinton risk). Risk on / off to dominate?
- Deutsche Bank strategist says gold crash is just beginning
- USD/JPY finishes at 103.50 on jump after ISM non-manufacturing index hit an 11-month high
- NZ data - ANZ 'Truckometer' for September: -1.4% m/m (prior +6.7%)
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 6 October 2016
- Mind the (credit to GDP) gap - BIS warns on China (Australia, you were lucky!)
I looked up lacklustre in the dictionary and there was a picture of today's Asian FX session!
Data flow was light, though we did get some commentary from Richmond Federal Reserve head Jeffrey Lacker (following on from his speech during the US day), and then from Federal Reserve Vice-chair Stanley Fischer. Neither of them had too much of an impact, ranges remained subdued.
Apart from that dynamic duo the focus was on the Australian trade balance data for August, which came in at a beat on expectations (a narrower than expected deficit). Given the rise in commodity prices is still largely to flow through its now expected that September and October deficits should be smaller again, with some analysts even thinking the unthinkable and saying the country might get into a trade surplus. Maybe, maybe not, but we should see a boost to GDP data from net exports flow through to the Q3 result.
The AUD didn't pay the data too much heed though, its net a little softer on the session. The NZD is ever so slightly better as I update.
USD/JPY is a few points weaker, there has been little news nor data flow (apart from the weekly securities flow data which indicated Japan sold foreign bonds on the week as USD funding costs peaked in the week ending September 30). Kuroda will be back in the Diet later today, so heads up for some headlines.
Elsewhere we saw EUR and CHF slightly weaker (CHF more so, and EUR is now more or less flat against the USD as I update). Cable has followed a similar pattern to the EUR/USD, a touch weaker and now little changed.
Gold was a wee but higher earlier and is too basically unchanged. Oil is a touch softer.
Chinese markets remained closed again today as Golden Week holidays continued.
Regional equities:
- Nikkei +0.61%
- HK +0.44%
- ASX +0.47%
Still to come:
- Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda will appear in parliament from 2.30pm Tokyo time (that's 0530GMT). How is the guy meant to get any work done?
