The forex trading headlines for Asia Monday 4 November 2013
Weekend items:
- China October official services PMI: 56.3 (vs 55.4 in September) and more here
- UK: Confederation of British Industry forecasts economic growth in 2014 at 2.4 % (revising up from 2.3% in August)
- Berkshire Hathaway reports a 29% increase in Q3 profits
- Chinese premier warns slowing growth raises job concerns
Monday:
- Federal Reserve’s Fisher speaking in Australia: Says US government has played ‘countercyclical suppressive role’ and more here
- Australia MI inflation gauge for October: 0.1% m/m (prior was +0.2%)
- Australia Retail Sales for September: +0.8% m/m (vs. expected +0.4%)
- Australia ANZ job advertisements for October: -0.1% (vs. prior +0.2% m/m)
- Australian House price index for Q3: +1.9% q/q (vs. expected +2.2%)
- New Zealand ANZ commodity prices for October: +1.3% m/m (vs. prior +0.9%)
- New Zealand Treasury publishes monthly economic indicators
- The 4 key things you need to know about China’s ‘Third Plenum’
A quiet opening for the week on Monday morning in Asia.
the AUD/USD was a mover early, though, ticking higher after the open with better China services PMI cited, and then up to just under 0.9500 on the back of strong local data (see bullets, above). Much talk in the market now about a likely end of the RBA easing cycle was prompted by today’s strong retail sales and house price rises data. AUD saw a brief drop back to 0.9470 as the EUR/USD got hit lower.
EUR/USD had a very quiet opening, drifting ever so slightly higher into 1.3500 offers. Around midday Tokyo time, though, it got hit quite hard, with a sharp drop to just under 1.3460; there was no apparent news about (comments from the Federal Reserve’s Fisher … (see bullets, above) … had been in the market for 30 minutes or more), the drop being attributed to a stop loss hunt. EUR/USD bottomed out below 1.3450 as of writing.
GBP, CHF NZD and AUD all weakened with the euro, but the euro was the biggest loser.
USD/JPY had a very quiet session, in a very tight range.