Forex news for Asia trading Friday 3 July 2015

  • Reminder ... a Panda is not the sort of bear you want mess with ... not always cuddly .. China's Shanghai Composite has been sold heavily again today
  • Here is BNP's 'best play' for the EUR to trade the Greek referendum
  • Reuters: China Fin. Futures exchange temporarily suspends 19 accounts from short selling
  • China stocks ... CSI300 down more than 4% ... Shanghai Comp down near 5%
  • China HSBC Services PMI for June: 51.8 (53.5 prior)
  • Japan Markit/Nikkei Services PMI: 51.8
  • Australia data - May Retail Sales: +0.3% m/m (expected +0.5%)
  • Press: France's Candia signs deal to boost milk sales in China
  • Shale oil producers had a hedge insurance safety net ... now its "going away"
  • Shanghai Securities News: China Should Require Pension Funds to Invest in Stocks
  • Australia AiG Services PMI for June: 51.2 (prior 49.6)
  • Westpac-Call change: We now expect the RBNZ to cut the OCR to 2.5% by October 2015
  • 9 myths about the Greek crisis (as approved by the Greek Finance minister)
  • New Zealand - Barfoot says Auckland June house prices rise 15.7% y/y
  • Eurogroup meeting scheduled for July 7 and 8
  • Reuters poll finds 15/20 US Primary Dealers a little less confident of September rate lift-off
  • Trade ideas thread for Friday 3 July 2015

Minor wiggles only for EUR, CHF, GBP today. These were not where the action was.

USD/JPY and EUR/JPY had a dip in the Tokyo morning of limited size and durations, both bouncing back to register new session highs, but only barely.

Oil was heavy into the US close but has managed a very small tick higher as I update. Gold is more or less flat on the session.

NZD/USD pretty much maintained its post NFP gains, AUD/NZD sellers helping it along, although NZD/USD has lost just a few points on the day.

Which brings us to today's biggest FX loser ... AUD.

AUD/USD ticked marginally higher in the early going and pretty much maintained its small positive into today's release of the Retail Sales data for May. The data came in improved over April (which was revised down) but missing epectations. AUD/USD was marked lower immediately and then suffered further declines as the HSBC Services PMI was released in China.

AUD remained heavy, and as Chinese stocks had another shocker of a morning the AUD lost further, filling in buyers just under 0.7600 and then triggering a wave of stop loss sellers below 0.7590. There was basically nil recovery once those stops were done and the Aussie lost a little more ground to hit below 0.7570 before stabilising a few points higher around 0.7585 as I update.

Still to come:

  • Europe and the UK are kicking off soon, but it's a US market holiday today!