Forex news for Asia trading Friday 8 September 2017
- China trade balance for August: USD terms 41.99bn (expected $48.45bn)
- China trade balance for August: CNY 286.5bn (expected CNY 335.7bn)
- RBA's Debelle: Comments on money market instruments (nothing on FX, yet anyway)
- EUR/USD blows past its overnight high, best now since January 2015
- USD slides again, AUD and NZD outperforming
- UK data shows staff shortages, wages rising fastest in 2 years
- Australia July home loans +2.9% m/m (vs. expected 1.0%) (& more on housing finance)
- ASB: "The NZD is low compared to commodity prices"
- PBOC sets USD/CNY reference rate for today at 6.5032 (vs. yesterday at 6.5269)
- Bank of Japan scheduled JGB buying operation
- "ECB offered no clear indication of policies to address the euro’s strength"
- Fed's George - says US labor mkt continues to tighten, inflation mild
- Japan comment on business investment - expected to remain in up trend
- Japan trade balance BOP for July: ¥ 566.6bn (expected ¥ 518.0B)
- Japan - Q2 GDP, final: 0.6% q/q (expected 0.7%)
- More from Fed's Dudley: Inflation has come off sharply this year, a surprise
- NY Fed's Dudley: Expects US monetary policy to continue to tighten gradually
- NAB on the ECB & euro - EUR/USD forecast
- NZ data - Q2 manufacturing activity +3.9% q/q (prior +3.1%, revised from +2.8%)
- ICYMI: Greek PM says Greece 'ready and determined' to exit bailout in 2018
- Barclays with a look ahead on ECB policy
- China data due over the weekend ... but also watch out for North Korean missiles
- ANZ on oil - Harvey, Texas flooding & rebalancing impact
- Heads up for China trade data due today , and then inflation data over the weekend
- ForexLive Americas FX news wrap: Draghi gets a light jawbone workout
- Trade ideas thread - Friday 8 September 2017
- Australian data due today - Housing finance for July - preview
- Economic data due from Asia today - Japan GDP & 2 Fed speakers
A big move for the USD here in Asia today (well, a big move for this time zone anyway). The USD was weak overnight and that move extended here. The move was pretty much across the board with all majors up against the dollar, to varying degrees, of course.
If 'continuation' is not enough and you are looking for catalysts for the move beyond overnight developments (Hi, Dr. Draghi!) allow me to point a finger at remarks from New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley. He dialled back his hawkishness from 3 weeks ago, not repeating his expectation for a rate hike this year. I was more taken aback with his comment along the lines that he did not view asset valuations as particularly troublesome, though.
Whatever it was, NZD, AUD, CAD, EUR, CHF, GBP all moved higher strongly. Yen was a bit of a laggard, but USD/JPY did drop on the session.
EUR/USD leapt to its highest since January of 2015, and for the yuan, onshore (CNY) was a big gainer, to its highest since April of last year.
Apart from Federal Reserve speakers (Dudley and George - George managed to be her usual hawkish self, Duds and G remarks are in the in the bullets, above) we got some data:
- Japanese GDP for Q2 was revised lower for its 'final' (the preliminary was a huge 4% y/y, taken down to 2.5% in today's revised result though);
- Australian housing finance for July (investor lending continues to slide, as new regulations have intended, so they're working so far at least);
- and Chinese trade balance for August (a smaller surplus).
See bullets above for details on these data points, and more.
Regional equities:
- Nikkei -0.49%
- Shanghai +0.24%
- HK +0.54%
- ASX -0.39%
Still to come:
- Coming up at 6.30pm Sydney time, which is 0830GMT - "Brief Remarks" by Philip Lowe, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, at the Bank of China Sydney Branch's 75th Anniversary Celebration Dinner
- The weekend brings China inflation data: China data due over the weekend ... but also watch out for North Korean missiles