ForexLive Asia Wrap: AUD/USD lower ahead of the Employment figures then lost more ground after them

• IMF’s Lagarde says Greek program moving ‘in right direction’ (Special Guest poster

  

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• Kathimerini: Disbursement of 3.25 bln euros to Athens
• November Japan Tertiary Industry Activity -0.3% M/M (vs +0.1% expected)
• New Zealand: ANZ January Consumer Confidence +3.1% (Prior was +0.5%)
• Australia – Melbourne Institute Consumer Inflation Expectations 2.0% (vs. 1.8% prior)
• Australia Employment Change worse than expected at -5,500 (vs. +13,900 in November)
• SocGen raises China 2013 growth estimate to 7.8% from 7.4
• Fed’s Fisher: policy impact of Fed bond buying fading over time
• Japan Trade Minister: No Change in stance to correct strong Yen
• Fed’s Kocherlakota Comments: The Fed should stand ready to be accommodative until the economy normalizes

The USD/JPY traded towards the resistance established around 88.80 in the morning; there was reasonable amounts of EUR/JPY buying which dragged the EUR/USD up with it back to the 1.3310 resistance level. As USD/JPY lost ground the EUR was reasonably stable but when USD/JPY cleared through bids at 88.50 the EUR/JPY fell away substantially, EUR/USD as low as 1.3274 and the USD/JPY down to 83.16 (the EUR/JPY getting down to 117.09 – but as I write, its under pressure again).

AUD had an active session, trading down from 1.0570 resistance into the Employment figures and then tumbling after the figures to 1.0530 support. It bounced as high as 50/55 but AUD/JPY selling from Macro names weighed on it during the afternoon before triggering stops below 1.0520 during the thin Tokyo lunch period. 1.0490/1.0500 promised support, but as of writing the bounce has been limited to only 15 points