Forex news for Asia trading on Thursday 30 September 2021
- Australia - Fortescue iron ore mining operations suspended after a worker death today
- SEC Chairman Gary Gensler reiterates his support for a bitcoin futures ETF
- Goldman Sachs says hidden local government debt in China is half of GDP
- The three reasons for China's unprecedented power crunch
- China Caixin/Markit Manufacturing PMI for September 50.0 (expected 49.5)
- Taiwan central bank says it will consider DM tightening in it policy decisions
- Australia Private Sector Credit for August +0.6% m/m (prior 0.7%)
- Australia Building Approvals for August +6.8% m/m (expected -5.0%)
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY mid-point today at 6.4854 (vs. estimate at 6.4817)
- South Korea finance minister, central bank, regulators to meet on intervention
- China official PMIs for September: Manufacturing 49.6 (expected 50.1)
- Thursday is the deadline for avoiding a US government shut down. Schumer says funding bill will pass.
- UK car production -27% y/y in August - semiconductor chip shortage
- Australian state of Queensland imposes further restrictions
- New Zealand ANZ business survey for September. Confidence -7.2, Activity +18.2
- Japan Retail sales for July -4.1% m/m (expected 1.3%)
- Japan Industrial Production for August -3.2% m/m (expected -0.5%)
- Bank of England gives a one year window to spend old £20 and £50 notes
- Australian firm Zip said to integrate with Microsoft Edge as soon as November
- Australian state Victoria reports a 50% jump in new cases for the day
- US House Leader Pelosi says on infrastructure vote Thursday - “that’s the plan”
- The United Nations Security Council is to meet on North Korea
- New Zealand Building Permits for August +3.8% m/m (expected +2.3%)
- North Korean dictator Kim says does not want to hurt South Korea
- US Senator Manchin opposing more spending: "Fiscal insanity"
- Fitch says potential US government shut down unlikely to impact most US public finance credits in the near term
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 30 September 2021
- Reports US House appears set to pull infrastructure vote - stalemate
- US Treasury and Yellen comments on G7 global tax agreement - flag an agreement in October
- Norges Bank excludes some Chinese firms from government pension fund
- NASDAQ index cannot hold gains and closes lower for the fourth consecutive day
- The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is seeking public input on the future of money
The US Senate will vote Thursday (local time) on a stopgap bill to keep the government funded through to December 3. Senate Leader Schumer has said he has an agreement to get the bill passed. If so it'd then head to the US House of Representatives where it should pass, and then, again if so, to US President Biden for signing.
The news added some positive sentiment to the session with currencies generally higher against the USD. Moves were not large, barely denting the massive rise for the USD Wednesday time - just a small retrace is all. Shut down may very well be avoided but Biden's legislative agenda is still unresolved.
In the data front we had Japanese industrial production data. This showed a bigger slump than was expected m/m, for the second consecutive month. The Japanese government revised its IP assessment, saying output is stalling. The semiconductor chip shortage continues to weigh, particularly impacting auto production.
A little later we had the first of the manufacturing PMIs from China for September. The Manufacturing PMI slipped into contraction for the first time since the darkest days for Chinese industry back in February 2020. The non-manufacturing PMI did improve though. In addition to chip shortages the NBS pointed to both demand and supply pressures including surging energy pricing and higher prices for other inputs.
Forty-five minutes after the official manufacturing PMI the privately surveyed Caixin-Markit manufacturing PMI for September was published. This came in at a small, and very welcome, expansion after the August contraction reading (see bullets above).
On the coronavirus front Australian state of Victoria recorded a 50% rise in new cases in one day, to 1400+ and a new high record for the state (by far). So far the State's government has not indicated any delay to reopening plans, vaccinations are the key. A further worsening of the outbreak from here will increase the probability of delays to reopening due to concerns over overwhelming the hospital system.
BTC rose for a solid gain:
