Forex and Bitcoin news for Asia trading Thursday 18 October 2018
- Chinese yuan weakens further, to its lowest since January of 2017
- Japan trade data recap - a surplus, but …
- ICYMI: Australian Q3 business confidence & conditions both fall
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY central rate at 6.9275 (vs. yesterday at 6.9103)
- More on the Australian jobs number: two headlines, a hit and a miss
- BOJ's Kuroda: BOJ will keep rates low for an extended period
- Japan September trade balance: Y +139.6bn (expected Y -45.1bn)
- Westpac on the NZD/USD - target under 0.64 by year end
- US Treasury report does not name China as a currency manipulator
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 18 October 2018
- Director-General of the WTO says facing crisis in global trade
- EU leaders have dropped plan for Nov 17 - 18 Brexit summit … but ….
AUD was an outperformer on the session here, benefitting from a big fall in the headline unemployment rate. September unemployment dropped to 5.0% from 5.3% the previous month The details of the report (lower participation rate, and for 'trend' data the u/e was unchanged) took some of the shine off, but details schmetails.
AUD/USD had been nestled around 0.7110 but was marked up to approach 0.7130. Its subsequently found renewed buyers under 0.7120 and is above 0.7130 on session highs as I update. Not a big range really, but not mcuh e can do about that!
USD/JPY was another mover, to above 112.70 in the Tokyo morning and back to circa 112.50 as I post. Trade balance data showed a surplus (a surprise) but the details in the figures were pretty awful, exports declined on the month (perhaps due to the sad run of natural events in Japan) for the first time in 22 months. Imports came in well under estimates also.
Elsewhere, USD/CAD gained notable, towards 1.3050 before losing steam to sideways. NZD, GBP, CHF, gold are not a lot net changed.
The yuan was a big big mover. The US Treasury report (the much awaited currency manipulator twice-yearly report) was finally released, and it declined to name any country as a currency manipulator, despite all the bluster and hot air expended by the US administration on China and the yuan. Check out the bullets above for more detail, but the net effect was they PBOC slashed the value of the onshore yuan today (I thought I heard giggling as they did but that could have been my imagination), and the CNY extended its losses into early china trade, on approach to a two year low.
USD/CNY weekly candles
Still to come:
