Forex news for Asia trading Tuesday 17 September 2019

It was a session of fairly light news and data flow but what little there was sent the AUD reeling. AUD/USD dropped from 0.6865 late North American trade time to under 0.6845 and has dropped further as I update to under 0.6840. I noted earlier a confluence of factors that combined to catalyse the fall:

  • The usually ignored weekly consumer sentiment data point hit a two year low, which got some attention, not in a good way
  • RBA September meeting minutes were released with the RBA yet again enunciating risks and adding fuel to the more rate cuts coming argument
  • China's PBOC backed off a little on monetary stimulus, allowing nearly 300bn yuan in money market instruments to mature today while only rolling a little over two-thirds of the amount
  • In addition, the PBOC weakened the onshore yuan today while China stock markets dropped also.

More details on these in the bullets above, bolded for easy spotting.

SForex news for Asia trading Tuesday 17 September 2019

NZD/USD fell with the AUD, although not to the same extent.

USD/JPY was also a mover (as were yen crosses), higher to above 108.30 before peeling back a few points. The news that the US-Japan trade deal is done seemed to cap it (although further detail indicated the deal is not fully agreed to yet). A notable point was made by Japanese Finance Minister Aso, that there was no 'currency provision' in the deal. Japan has been pressured on yen weakness (at least by one big-time tweeter if you know what I mean!) but Aso today suggesting this pressure is off.

Cable is a few points down for the session, as is USD/CHF while EUR/USD is just a few points up. Also up is USD/CAD.

Still to come: