Forex trading news and economic data headlines 23 September 2015

Asia session catch up - ForexLive Asia FX news wrap: Fed's Lockhart and China flash PMI the catalysts today

  • French Q2 GDP qq final +0.0% as exp/flash
  • France Markit mftg PMI Sept flash 50.4 vs 48.6 exp
  • Germany Markit mftg PMI Sept flash 52.5 vs 52.6 exp
  • Eurozone Markit mftg PMI Spet flash 52.0 as exp
  • US MBA mortgage market index 456.1 vs 400.5 prior

ECB chatter

  • Linde says Q3 indicators confirm Spain's economic expansion
  • Emerging Europe is in good shape says ECB's Nowotny - Plus QE comments!
  • ECB will continue monitoring rather than acting in October - Livesquawk
  • It's too early to talk about new stimulus says ECB's Jazbec

News

  • Greek banks recapitalization may total EUR20bln
  • China intervenes to support CNY in offshore markets
  • Swiss econ minister says purchasing power parity is well above EURCHF 1.20
  • Japan's 2% inflation target may be delayed due to China
  • Shanghai Composite Index down 1.7% after weaker Chinese PMI
  • Option expiries 10am NY cut today 23 Sept
  • Preview: Draghi to bang the QE drum in parliament

The market had picked itself back up from the Chinese PMI knockout punch by the time I turned up and USDJPY had returned to the Lockhart highs. It looks a classic case of sell the rumour buy the fact on China so the market took the news, said "we know" and got on with life. Under 30 pips has been the range since then as we head towards Draghi

Speaking of which, not ones to be upstaged by the main man, a plethora of ECB members hit the wires today and with the euro trading the 'will they/won't they do more QE', the various comments from Nowotny, Jazbec and MNI sources had the euro all over the place. The 1.1100 level remained intact throughout and the moves haven't been huge. The review of the ECB bods means the euro is a little less sure that more QE is on the cards and so has run up to 1.1173 before slipping back to 1.1160. Draghi is the big attraction at 13.00 GMT and based on today's price action, the euro is going to be dancing to his every word

EURGBP has had a double lift from the GBPUSD looking awful once again and the bounce in the euro. We've touched 0.7302 from a session low of 0.7236and we don't look finished yet

Commodity currencies have also tried to pick themselves up from the China news but haven't quite managed it in AUDUSD which sits around 25 pips south of the drop from 0.7085

NZDUSD has just completed the round trip from 0.6300 to 0.6256

European stocks have been staging a bounce following yesterday's dumping. Are we waiting for the thud from the cat? Maybe the US holds the key

We're light on US data until the Markit manufacturing PMI flash for September so the sparks may have to come from the ECB magician later

Over to Brussels for the show