Forex news for Asia trading Monday 8 December 2014
Weekend:
- Ukraine pays $378m to Gazprom for gas supplies
- IMF heading to Kiev for bailout talks worth $17bln
- Australian Financial System enquiry is published
Monday:
- French PM Valls: Inflation is too low in the Eurozone
- New Zealand data – Q3 manufacturing activity: -1.2% q/q (prior was -1.9%)
- Reuters Tankan: Japan manufacturers index +10 in December vs +13 in November
- Japan – Q3 GDP data – FINAL: -0.5% q/q – Recession is worse than expected
- Japan data – BoP current account for October: ¥ 833.4bn (expected ¥ 370.1B)
- Australia ANZ job advertisements data for November: +0.7% m/m (prior was +0.2%)
- China Securities Journal says “China needs a strong bull market”
- China trade balance for November: $ 54.5bn (expected +$43.95bn)
- China Business Daily says NBS official sees 2015 GDP target at 7 – 7.2%
The ‘final’ Q3 GDP data for Japan, which showed the recession is worse than the ‘preliminary’ data suggested vied for attention with the Chinese November trade balance data today.
The Japanese data came out earlier in the day, so lets give that precedence. The worse than expected data (see bullets, above) saw the yen strengthen a little, even as the Nikkei225 continued its gains. The moves soon reversed, though, with both settling more or less sideways off extremes for the session.
Other data out of Japan today, notably the current account, were far less negative (see bullets, above).
EUR/USD and cable were both marginally soft on the session, with barely anything in it.
AUD and NZD, though, were both heavy against the USD. The AUD/USD making news session lows as I write and the NZD just barely holding at earlier session lows.
Oil lost ground on the session, too, while gold was barely changed.
