The troubles in China’s property market intensified over the weekend. Country Garden, China's top private property developer, said in a statement to the Shenzen stock exchange that it was going to suspend trading of its 11 onshore bonds from Monday. The response on Chinese stock exchanges was swift, with property developers extending their losses from last week. As I post the Shanghai Composite is down around 1.3% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is lower by over 2.4%.

‘Risk’ sentiment was hit more broadly with losses for AUD/USD and NZD/USD notable during the session. The US dollar was more broadly bid too, adding to its Friday’s (and last week’s) gains; EUR, CAD and GBP all slipped. CAD was further impacted by oil prices trading down on the day.

USD/JPY, of course, traded its own world. The early move was higher, tracking to a high just over 145.20 before dropping back in a quick manner to lows under 144.70 briefly. As I post its back to circa 144.93. There were no verbal intervention comments out of Japan today.

Asian equity markets:

  • Japan’s Nikkei 225 -1%

  • China’s Shanghai Composite -1.3%

  • Hong Kong’s Hang Seng -2.5%

  • South Korea’s KOSPI -1%

  • Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 -0.8%

The People's Bank of China set the USD/CNY reference rate more than 600 points stronger for the onshore yuan than was expected today. Offshore yuan largely shrugged it off:

usdcnh wrap chart 14 August 2023