The headline says it all, the eyes of the world were fixed on the release of the China HSBC Flash Manufacturing PMI to get a gauge on how the Chinese economy is performing – signs have been in place of a bottoming in the Chinese slowdown, would the PMI figure confirm the better readings of late, or dash hopes?
- The number came in at 50.4 (vs 49.5 previous),
- A 13 month high.
Other releases today were sparse:
- NZ Visitor Arrivals -1.7% MoM
- Japan Stocks and Bonds flows
- Japanese Chain Store Sales fell 4% (YoY) after a 2% fall for the previous month.
- EUR/USD started the day with a sharp move on stop loss buying above 1.2830, taking it to 1.2868 before trading steadily lower for the balance of the session in a ‘fill the gap’ type move. EUR/JPY, of course traded higher (above 106.20).
- USD/JPY retried its NY highs, as high as 89.59; trading a little lower-to sideways for the balance of the session.
- AUD ticked steadily higher into sellers at 1.0380/85, before spiking on the Chinese PMI Flash to 1.0402. There was no follow-through, it fell back to that 1.0380/85 level and spent the afternoon there.
