Forex news for Asia trading 9 January 2020
- Australian PM Morrison - Australia remains committed to the mission in Iraq
- Huawei is in talks to raise USD 2bn in loans/bond sales outside China
- China will allow local governments to front-load more than 500 bn yuan bond issuance to be used up before March!
- Moody's warn of growth continuing to slow this year, despite US-China deal
- China CPI 4.5% y/y (expected 4.7%) and PPI -0.5% y/y (expected 0.4%)
- Data sourced on crashed Ukraine jet after Iran says it will withhold black box
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.9497 (vs. yesterday at 6.9450 )
- FX option expiries for Thursday 9 January at the 10am NY cut
- Don't be fooled by the Phase 1 trade deal: "The threat to the West … all too clear"
- Australia trade balance for November: AUD + 5800m (expected AUD 4100m surplus)
- More UK data - Barclaycard data says consumer confidence gaining
- UK BRC Sales like-for-like +1.7% y/y in December (vs. expected -0.5%)
- New Zealand - ANZ Commodity Price index for December: -2.8% m/m (prior +4.3%)
- US Vice President Pence was due to give a speech on Iran. Its been, cough, postponed.
- The US has issued fresh warning of likely terror attacks by Iran, Hezbollah
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 9 January 2020
- More on the latest rocket attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad
- World Bank cuts global growth forecasts for 2019 and 2020
- New Zealand - ANZ Truckometer for December: -2.5% m/m (prior -1.5%)
After the moderate swings in currencies during the attacks on US interests in Iraq by Iran on Wednesday (local time) snooziness returned to the ranges here today. There was little in the way of fresh news - bar an early report of 3 Katyusha rockets fired into Baghdad's Green Zone.
For data we had two notable pieces - the Australian trade balance for November and China inflation data for December.
The Australian trade balance showed a good size surplus, but the surplus appears to be turning lower as exports are not as strong as they were earlier in 2019. Perrhaps even more concerning was the fall in imports, both for domestic consumption and capex purposes. This fall is not, on the face of it, indicative of a strong domestic economy.
December inflation data from China showed the same as it was in November, with pork prices up only 97% on the month, not as much as in November. Yeah ... only +97%!. The PPI came in worse than expected (further deflationary PPI) which does not auger well for any improvement in business profitability.
As I said above, major currency ranges were subdued. This may well persist with chunky option expiries perhaps trapping many of the rates for the session ahead (see bullets above).
