Forex news for Asia trading Tuesday 2 December 2014
- Australia – ANZ Roy Morgan weekly Consumer Sentiment for the week ended November 30, 113.9 (prior was 114.3)
- Japan – November monetary base: 36.7% y/y (vs. prior 51.9%)
- New Zealand ANZ Commodity Price Index: -1.6% m/m (prior -0.8%)
- Australia Q3 BoP Current Account balance: -12.5bn (vs. expected -13.5bn)
- Australia Building approvals for October: +11.4% m/m (vs. expected +5.0%)
- Deutsche Bank tips two rate cuts from the RBA in 2015
- Japan – October Labor Cash earnings y/y: +0.5% (vs. expected +0.8%)
- Japan official: Declines comment on Moody’s downgrade of Japan debt
- RBA – NO CHANGE – likely to be a period of stability in interest rates
The final RBA meeting for 2014 passed by today without much of a ripple – the bank leaving the cash rate unchanged at 2.5% and repeating that’s where its gonna stay for quite some time to come. now they head off on a 9-week break at the beach. Can’t say I blame them, really, I was at the beach myself yesterday afternoon and evening and it was spectacular… But, I digress … the RBA’s next meeting is on February 3.
The Australian dollar had a bit of a wiggle or two during the session, though, drifting a little lower earlier, seemingly inspired to do so by the release of the Deutsche Bank client note tipping 2 rate cuts in 2015 … which is quite a bit of news as all other banks are pretty much calling the next RBA move as a hike (in the distant future, of course).
AUD bounced on the release of the data (building permits and current account … see bullets, above) and then a drift back to the lows.
On the RBA announcement the AUD spiked quickly above 0.8500, fell back to a fresh session low and then made fresh highs above 0.8520 … (whip it good). it is currently just below there as I post.
NZD/USD followed a similar pattern, but the moves were not as big as in the AUD.
Elsewhere we saw relatively narrow, non-directional ranges prevail.
Even oil and gold were somewhat subdued.
And … still to come … New Zealand dollar traders – heads up for dairy auction tonight
