Forex trading headlines for Asia Wednesday 3 September 2014
- New Zealand data – Q2 construction work … ‘Value of all buildings +1.0% q/q (expected flat)
- UK data – August BRC Shop price index -1.6% y/y (vs. -2.0% expected)
- Australia – AIG Performance of Services index for August: 49.4 (prior was 49.3 )
- US President Obama authorizes sending 350 more troops to Iraq to protect Baghdad embassy
- China Service PMI for August: 54.4 (vs. 54.2 prior)
- Australia – Q2 GDP comes in at 0.5 % q/q (vs. +0.4% expected)
- Japan: Markit/JMMA Services PMI for August: 49.9 (prior was 50.4)
- CHINA: HSBC services PMI for August: 54.1 (prior was 50.0)
- Japan – New LDP Secretary-general Tanigaki says should proceed with sales-tax hike
- Australia Q2 GDP – analyst reactions
- RBA’s Stevens: Has made his views clear on the high AUD, won’t repeat them
USD/JPY ticked higher again in the Tokyo morning to touch briefly above 105.25 before stabilizing around 105.20 for the balance of the session (as of writing).
GBP weakened marginally but had a narrow range. No signs of a bounce yet, though.
USD/CAD, too, trade a narrow range, a tick or so higher,
EUR and CHF were also lacklustre in a subdued range.
NZD weakened in the overnight but bounced, only to revisit its lows during the day here and to be back below 0.8300 again (as of writing).
AUD was a little more active. We had the much-anticipated Q2 GDP data come in better than expected, but still below the Q1 result by a good margin. AUD/USD jumped 20-off points on the data print, only to be slammed to new session lows … only to come back on a bit of a bounce and to be relatively unchanged for the session. A speech from RBA governor Stevens (see bullets, above) didn’t elicit much of an currency response at all.
China services PMI data today had little impact.
The Nikkei stock index gained today, much talk about PM Abe’s cabinet reshuffle being a positive. We’ll see about that ….
