The forex trading headlines for Asia Thursday 12 December 2013
- Employment Change November: +21.0K vs. expected 10.0K, prior 1.1K
- Unemployment Rate November: 5.8% vs. expected 5.8%, prior 5.7%
- Full Time Employment Change November: +15.5k vs. prior was -27.9K
- Part Time Employment Change November: +5.5k vs. prior was 28.9K
- Participation Rate November 64.8% vs. expected 64.8%, prior was 64.8%
International Transactions in Securities, the week ended December 6:
- Japan Buying Foreign Bonds, Y 413.2B (previous week was Y 65.5B)
- Japan Buying Foreign Stocks, Y -127.5B (previous week was Y -66.4B)
- Foreign Buying Japan Bonds, Y -13.9B (previous week was Y 57.6B)
- Foreign Buying Japan Stocks, Y 113.8B (previous week was Y 368.7B)
- Australia Consumer Inflation Expectations for December: 2.1%% (vs. prior +1.9%)
- More comments from RBNZ’s Wheeler: official cash rate will need to increase to contain prices
- Japan – GPIF needs to decrease JGBs, increase other assets
European currencies had a bit of a range today, but ended the session (as of writing) near unchanged. GBP, EUR, CHF dipped a little at the end of the American session but regained their losses as the Asian morning passed. While there was a bit of movement, they all were contained with 20-25 point bounds … but, hey that’s all we got! EUR/CHF did manage to trip a few stops above 1.2230 ahead of the SNB meeting coming up in Europe time today.
Yen crosses were a little more active, USD/JPY ticking higher in the Tokyo morning as the Nikkei index clawed back a little. Short-lived, though, USD/JPY returned toward its session mid-point and the crosses returned to somnolescence.
The kiwi popped in early New Zealand trading on the back of the RBNZ “no change today but watch out for higher interest rates in 2014” message. That is, the same thing we’ve been hearing for months from them. Still, there you are – the NZD popped higher and settled sideways for the balance of the session (as if writing).
Ahhh, but the AUD! Not letting the Asian team down, the AUD had a good amount of action. Today marked the day of the 30-year anniversary of the AUD float … and the AUD responded with a stirring rendition of “Its my party and I’ll cry if I want to” … read on …
It was employment figure day (see bullets, above) and the AUD responded immediately to the better headline figures by being marked up 30-odd points to just above 0.9080, only to be met by a whole bunch of eager sellers (US names, hedge-funds notable sellers … again), taking it back to 0.9050 and then lower. There were plenty of bids to work through, so there was no collapse, but work through them it did, only finding more enduring support ahead of 0.9010 (also bigger buyers at 0.9000) and settling above 0.9020 as of writing.
