Forex trading headlines for Asia Thursday 21 August 2014
- New Zealand – ANZ job advertisements for July: -2.7% m/m (prior was +3.3%)
- New Zealand – July net migration +4540 (+4270 prior)
- Nikkei: Japan government mulls setting aside 1tln yen for stimulus
- Reuters Tankan: Confidence at Japanese manufacturers inched up in August
- Japan Buying Foreign Bonds, Y 659.8B (plus, the rest of this data)
- Australia – Conference Board Leading Index for June: +0.4% m/m (prior was +0.2%)
- New Zealand – ANZ consumer confidence index for August: -5.4% m/m (prior was +0.6%)
- Australia – RBA FX transaction for July
- Japan Flash Markit/JMMA Manufacturing PMI for August 52.4 (expected 51.5)
- China HSBC/Markit Flash manufacturing PMI for August: 50.3 (vs. expected 51.5)
- New Zealand – Credit Credit card spending for July: +4.5% y/y (prior +7.0%)
More:
- Which investment bank opened a long, is looking for 107 on USD/JPY?
- Nomura: Post-Bank of England August monetary policy meeting Minutes …When will we get the first rate hike?
- EUR/USD and the correlation with the S&P500 … a few slightly different views
- BNZ says the lower NZD may remove an impediment to the RBNZ resuming rate hike cycle
Someone in New York forgot to turn the market off when they left the office today, which was nice.
Overnight moves extended a little further in the session here today. EUR and GBP both came off a little further, as did the CHF and CAD. GBP/USD is on its lows as I write.
USD/JPY, meanwhile ground it out for another few points gain before settling sideways ahead of bigger sellers at 104.00 and around there.
Bigger moves for AUD and NZD, though. The big data point focus in the markets today was the HSBC China Flash Manufacturing PMI (see bullets, above), which came in at a 3-month low and saw the AUD marked down a quarter of a US cent or so. It had been drifting lower lower in the minutes leading up to the data release. NZD, too, was heavier on the session, spiking briefly below 0.8350 a couple of time before stabilising. It was the AUD that was the bigger loser of the two on the session, though.
The weaker PMI flash from China impacted Chinese stocks, the Shanghai Composite off around 0.3% and the Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index down 0.7%. The Nikkei liked the yen fall overnight, though, with a good size gain from yesterday.
