The forex trading headlines for Asia Wednesday 4 December 2013
- New Zealand Q3 ‘Value of all buildings’ construction work +1.4% (expected +4.8%)
- Australia – AIG Services PMI for November: 48.9 (prior was 47.9)
- Japan economy stimulus package, with 5.5 tln yen extra budget, to total 18.6 tln yen (Newswire headline, quoting unnamed sources)
- UK data – BRC shop price index for November: -0.3% y/y (prior was -0.5%)
- Australia Q3 GDP: +0.6% q/q (vs. expected +0.7%)
- Australia Q3 GDP: +2.3% y/y (vs. expected +2.6%)
- China HSBC services PMI for November: 52.5 (vs. 52.6 prior)
- Bank of Japan (BOJ) board member Sato: Small diversions of economic, price outlook will not trigger further BOJ action
- Japan GPIF president: Says GPIF must cut Japan bond allocation at some point
Yen crosses continued to lose ground in late Americas trading, but soon stabilized. USD/JPY found support ahead of 102.00, moving higher on the session through to 102.60 and trading in a choppy sort of fashion 102.25/60 thereafter. The Nikkei lost a lot of ground on the TSE today after futures slid in the overnight.
AUD got hit lower on the release of the Q3 GDP figures (see bullets, above), eventually trading to just below 0.9050 before stabilizing. It had a tight range thereafter (as of writing). NZD/USD fell along with the AUD, but not losing quite so much ground.
EUR, CHF, GBP had tight ranges against the USD, but moving against the yen as USD/JPY swung around.
