Forex news for Asia trading Wednesday 16 September 2015

China

  • China January-August outbound investment +18.2% y/y
  • China: another state-owned firm warns it may miss bond payments
  • People's Bank of China (PBOC) sets yuan reference rate 6.3712
  • PBOC's Ma Jun says Chinese economy is better than market expectations
  • China-Almost 1,300 hedge funds have closed in the wake of the stock market plunge
  • China to encourage qualified companies to sell bonds overseas

FOMC week!

  • HKMA's Chan says the chance of a Federal Reserve rate hike this year is very high
  • Citi has 2 FX plays for trading the FOMC
  • US rate hike IS coming ... if not from the FOMC then from this bank by itself
  • US inflation watch ... FedEx will increase shipping rates from January

Australia and New Zealand:

  • Australia to force (more) divestment of illegal ownership of residential property
  • Australia-Westpac Leading index for August: -0.3% m/m(prior +0.1%)
  • More from RBA's Debelle: Says he'd be surprised if there wasn't volatility when Fed hikes
  • RBA's Debelle: Medium-term Australian growth rate may have slowed
  • BNZ hikes its Fonterra 2015/16 milk price forecast to $5/kg
  • NZ Q2 Current Account data: Bop Current account balance -1.216bn (expected -1.5bn)
  • ASB raise Fonterra dairy payout forecast to $5/kg - more detail

Oil

  • Recent oil price movements have been extraordinary-where will crude oil go from here?
  • Oil-US Senate's McConnell to propose restrictions on lifting Iran sanctions
  • API crude oil inventories: fall 3.1 million barrels
  • Goldman Sachs WTI technical analysis
  • Trade ideas thread for Wednesday 16 September 2015
  • Protests over ex-BNP banker tipped to head the Banque de France
  • Goldman Sachs and 8 other big banks form blockchain partnership

Minor FX moves today, but notable nonetheless.

EUR/USD made its way steadily higher, with no catalysts (that came to my attention anyway), just a steady bid. Its up just shy of 1.1300 as I update and should encounter some resistance here at the very least.

The CHF wasn't quite so bid, but it has gained in the past hour so, with USD/CHF appearing to fill in the bids around 0.9735 and then dipping on some stops going off, down 20 points quite sharply.

USD/JPY had a quiet beginning to the session, but has been offered ever since the Nikkei opened today.

AUD and NZD were both lacklustre, both trading in narrow ranges. AUD/USD is heading towards overnight highs as I update ... but not much a range like I said.

Cable is a few tics higher on the session and again not much in it.

Oil leaped on the larger than expected inventory draw down reported by the American Petroleum Institute (see bullets, above) late in the US session but has retraced much of its gain (but not all) as i update. Gold is more or less unchanged on the session.

Local equities are having a better day:

  • Shanghai +0.15% (thats what passes for a good day)
  • Nikkei +.85%
  • ASX +1.4%
  • HK +1.1%

Still to come:

  • UK jobs data due Wednesday, will a tight labour market lead to higher inflation?
  • NZD/USD: Preview of the Q2 GDP data due from New Zealand