The forex trading headlines for Asia: Thursday 17 October, 2013
US Debt drama:
- The Senate and then the House both passed the legislation to reopen government and raise the debt ceiling
- Standard and Poor’s say the shutdown shaved at least 0.6% off yearly Q4 GDP growth
- Citi says the ‘hard’ debt ceiling is now March 2014
- PIMCO’s El-Erian on what comes after the US debt deal
News from outside the asylum:
- Reuters Tankan – Japan manufacturers index +12 in October, unchanged from September
- China – FDI September +4.9% y/y (vs. +5.7% expected and +0.6% prior)
- New Zealand Finance Minister English: NZ wants to avoid repeat of mid-2000s house price bubble
- New Zealand – ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index +2.9% m/m
- Australia data – NAB Q3 business confidence: 3 (vs. prior was -1)
- Canada government to introduce balanced budgets law and more here
- Federal Reserve’s Esther George speech – comments
- PIMCO said that with the Australian dollar at 0.9550, means interest rates will be low for longer
- UBS rate strategist: Probability of further RBA rate cuts ‘quite low’
- Federal Reserve’s Richard Fisher on How to deal with ‘Too big to fail’ banks
It looks like we have seen the back of the shut down/debt ceiling fights until February 2014, when we can do it all over again. The votes in the Senate and the House were the pretty much the only talking points in the markets today, even though the result was as near as possible to a foregone conclusion.
USD/JPY made its 99.00 high for the session on the first vote in the Senate (the vote that cleared the way for the Senate to actually vote on the legislation itself). The 99 sellers held the top in place and USD/JPY then drifted lower through the substantive Senate vote and then through the House vote, finding support ahead of 98.50.
EUR, GBP and CHF all gained during the session – the moves were not huge but nevertheless for the Asian time zone of late they were notable. EUR/USD from 1.3515/20 to 45/50 highs while cable ticked into 1.5980/85.
AUD and NZD both took something of a back seat today, kiwi with a 17/45 range and AUD 27/68.
