Forex news for Asia trading Tuesday 6 September 2016
- Westpac have cranked up their expectations for Australian Q2 GDP
- Abe advisor Hamada says the BOJ should wait for the Fed
- Japan's Suga: To firmly implement policy for fiscal and economic growth
- Australia Q2 Current account: -$15.5bn (expected -20bn)
- PBOC sets yuan reference rate for today at 6.6676 (vs. yesterday at 6.6873)
- AUD continues its gains ahead of RBA meeting today
- Economist: Australia has weathered the China slowdown and commodities slump well
- Australian Q4 business expectations survey comes in higher
- New Zealand QV house prices (August): +14.6% y/y (prior +14.1%)
- Australia data: ANZ weekly consumer sentiment: 114.3 (prior 118.4)
- UK data: BRC August Retail like-for-like sales: -0.9% y/y (vs. expected 1.4%, prior 1.1%)
- NZ data beat - Wholesale sales up 1.7% q/q (vs. expected +1.5%)
- New Zealand data - August ANZ Truckometer up 6.7% m/m (prior -5.7%)
- Trade ideas thread - Tuesday 6 September 2016
- NZD traders - dairy auction today (London time). Will the gains continue?
AUD traded higher today ahead of the RBA meeting (announcement due 0430GMT) - no change expected .... here are some previews:
- RBA meeting coming up - here's 10 previews!
- RBA monetary policy meeting today - preview from Westpac
- RBA preview from NAB ... "likely to be something of a non-event"
- Australia - RBA meeting this week, quick preview
- Its Governor Glenn Stevens' final RBA policy meeting Tuesday - preview)
On the data front from Australia we got:
- a fall in consumer sentiment for the week,
- a rise in business expectations for the quarter ahead,
- a narrowing in the current account deficit for Q1 and a beat for Q2,
- A miss on 'net exports as a % of GDP (this will take 0.2 or a point of tomorrow's Q2 GDP (but rising government spending will be an add to the result)
- A rising terms of trade for Q2
- And forecasts for stronger commodity prices from UBS
Talk about a mixed bag! The net result, though was 40 or so point gain (50+ now as I update) for AUD/USD and a surging AUD/JPY.
AUD/JPY was helped higher by a strong USD/JPY, it gained after a sideways US holiday session to add on around 60 points from European lows. Early news flow from Japan was virtually non-existent, as was data.
However, USD/JPY dropped back again; curiously it started to fall a little and then we had news reports of comments from advisor to Japanese Prime Minister Abe, Koichi Hamada; he suggested the BOJ hold off any action at the September meeting because any move would be overshadowed by the Fed a few hours later. USD/JPY dropped back under 103.40 (briefly) and is now back around 103.55.
Movement apart from AUD and yen was subdued. EUR/USD, USD/CHF both had small ranges and are little changed. Cable, too, has had a small range but is a little higher on the session.
Gold little net changed, oil is up a few cents on the session.
Regional equities:
- Nikkei +0.22%
- Shanghai +0.02%
- HK +0.40%
- ASX -0.23%
Still to come: NZD traders - dairy auction today (London time). Will the gains continue?
And on Wednesday we get Q2 GDP data from Australia, be sure to tune in!
Westpac have cranked up their expectations for Australian Q2 GDP to +0.5% q/q (from +0.4% prior to today's data)
- UBS jacked up their forecast too, now at 0.6% q/q (from 0.4%) and 3.5% y/y
- Morgan Stanley are at 0.6% and 3.2%
- ANZ 0.4% and 3.3%
