Forex news for Asia trading Friday 28 August 2015

China

  • China's fake iPhones, fake Rolexes ... now they've even got a fake Goldman Sachs!
  • China's vice finmin - Will start local pension fund investment as soon as possible
  • China July Industrial Profits: -2.9% y/y (prior month's result was -0.3% y/y)
  • PBOC sets yuan mid-point reference rate at 6.3986
  • Some early chatter our of China ... officials preparing new round of stock mkt buying
  • China economy - evidence of shrinkage?
  • China has loosened restrictions on foreign investment in real estate

New Zealand

  • RBNZ says it bought net 191mln NZD in July
  • ASB on RBNZ forecasts - to cut to 2.5% by October
  • AUD, NZD both higher ... overnight commodity gains, Japanese buyers cited
  • S&P forecast NZ GDP growth to slow, ratings affirmed, outlook stable

Japan inflation, and more:

  • Japan retail sales data for July: +1.2% m/m (expected +0.6%) and +1.6% y/y (expected +1.1%)
  • Japan data: Overall Household Spending -0.2y/y for July (expected +0.5%) + jobs data
  • Japan CPI for July: 0.2% y/y (expected 0.2%)
  • Citi economist Buiter: China sliding into recession ... likely drag global economy with it
  • UK data - GfK Consumer Confidence for August: 7 (expected 4)
  • US Q2 GDP data: "Not a lot here for people to moan about" & more bank responses
  • Rumble in the central banking jungle ... India vs. China. India wins.
  • Ukraine - debt write off & and 4 year delay to bond repayments
  • More from France's Macron: Confident ECB will take action if needed
  • France's Macron: Says French labour market must be made more flexible
  • Trade ideas thread for Friday 28 August 2015
  • Plosser says Fed shouldn't be swayed by short-term gyrations in markets on lift-off timing
  • Time to update the spellcheckers again - Greece names new PM
  • Caterpillar cutting jobs - cites declining revenues from mining, construction activities

Another day of calmer trading in Asia FX as Chinese shares continue to show signs of stabilisation.

  • As I update, the Shanghai and Shenzen Composites are up 2.2 and 1.7% respectively

For Asian equities thats translated into another up day also:

  • Nikkei +2.8%, HK +1.3% and Australia ... not quite so impressively at around +0.3%

Oil continued its strong overnight surge, with WTI poking above $43. Gold rewardings its buyers with a continuation also, popping briefly above $US1132.

FX wasn't quite so exciting. EUR and CHF had small wobbles but both are more or less unchanged from where I walked in. Cable consolidated its overnight bounce, putting on 40 or points from early session lows.

AUD and NZD were both very well bid in the morning trading. Overnight commodity price gains along with talk of increased Japanese buyer interest taking them both to 40 or so odd point gains against the USD. Late in the day data from the RBNZ was interesting, with RBNZ buying during July for 'portfolio rebalancing' purposes (i.e they took some profits on their big short established much, much higher in August of 2014.

USD/JPY did pretty much what it so often does and traded in a small sideways range, topping above 121.20 and getting back below 121.00 as I update. Inflation data today from Japan was unimpressive on the headline, but the core-core measure (in Japan that means excluding food and energy) getting a bit of a better rise (see bullets, above).

USD/CAD lost ground further, and has shown a small bounce (15 or so points only) as I update.

Still to come ... it's a Jackson Hole weekend!:

  • Central bank speeches coming up this weekend - Jackson Hole Official Schedule out now
  • Fed's long discussed rate hike - they're now urged to "Get on with it already"