Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 15 August 2019
- Overnight borrowing rate for offshore yuan has hit its highest since October of 2018
- More on the China house price data out earlier, slower growth in prices
- Updated RBA forecast from CBA. A 25bp cut in November, another in February
- ICYMI: A senior UK Conservative suggested PM Johnson could Brexit in the next 10 days.
- Was that just a better than Goldilocks employment report from Australia?
- PBOC inject one year funds via MLF
- July China house prices +0.59% m/m, growth down on June's 0.66% rise
- Australia jobs report: Employment Change: +41.1K (vs. expected +14.0K)
- Japan - JGB yields dropping to 3 years lows
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 7.0268 (vs. yesterday at 7.0312)
- FX option expiries for Thursday August 15 at the 10am NY cut
- Japan economy minister Motegi upbeat on moderate economic expansion in Japan
- Australia Consumer inflation expectations for August: 3.5% (prior 3.2%)
- More from China state media on 'terrorism' in Hong Kong
- More on RBA Debelle comments on the inverting US yield curve
- RBA dep gov says not sure how much signal to take from inversion of US yield curve
- AUD levels for the session ahead (watch out for jobs report volatility)
- RBA's Debelle: Global economy runs risk of self-fulfilling downturn
- Trump's tweets getting longer as US stock plunge
- Stock market plunge - here are the bricks removed from the global Jenga game
- Not forex. Microsoft warns Windows 10 users of two "critical" vulnerabilities.
- Brexit - More on UK's Corbyn - called on rebel Tories, opposition leaders to oust Boris Johnson
- UK's Corbyn wants no confidence vote, delay Brexit, election. Will campaign for a2nd referendum.
- Morgan Stanley on the yield curve inversion - when bear markets start
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 15 August 2019
- Dow closes at session lows. Dow(n) -800 points
Asia came in following a big down session for equities after poor German data and both UK and US yield curve inversions overnight. In the forex space we saw a stronger yen, and a weaker AUD and EUR (and others).
Just scanning regional equities before I move on, there have been bounces from weak openings, but still net lower for the session here. Nikkei, for example:
While GBP has not moved much here its worth checking out the bullets above, we had some Brexit news out late in the UK evening. While parliament in the UK is on its summer break (really, you'd think there was enough to do to keep them all in London and busy) Brexit developments continue to evolve.
A lot of the incoming info today was AUD related, with a speech from RBA Deputy Governor Guy Debelle (see bullets above) that didn't cover much new or surprising. Later we received the July employment report, which showed a huge beat for jobs added. The headline unemployment rate remained unchanged while the 'trend' rate ticked up by 0.1% - the 'trend' employment data is usually thought to be a more reliable indicator than the headline number and its likely the result today will do nothing to dissuade the RBA from its easing bias (although monitoring mode will persist until more data comes in for the months ahead after two consecutive cuts in June and July).
The AUD moved higher after the report, towards 0.6790. Its circa 0.6780 as I update. Pricing for RBA rate cuts ahead have fallen after the numbers, but as I said the rise in the trend unemployment rate will not change the RBA easing bias.
EUR/USD is up small, as is kiwi. Otherwise not too much change to report for the majors.
The People's Bank of China set the onshore yuan a touch stronger for the day. Gold moved above 1520USD again but is currently just under.
