Forex news for Asia trading Friday 7 August 2015

  • NZD: Fonterra announce farmgate milk price for 2015/16: $3.85
  • BOJ announce: No change in monetary policy, as expected

Australia:

  • RBA SoMP: Reasonable chance AUD to decline further once Fed raises US rates
  • Australia - Home loans for June: +4.4% m/m (vs. expected +5.0%)
  • Australian Treasury Sec. Fraser: Data since budget has been mixed
  • Australia: AiG Construction PMI, for July: 47.1 (prior was 46.4)
  • US Senator Schumer (Dem.) says "I have decided I must oppose" the Iran nuclear deal
  • NDRC: China capable of maintaining medium, high speed growth
  • China stocks ... no ... wait ... Aussie stocks getting trashed
  • EUR/USD technical analysis chart from JP Morgan - price action is "still fairly random"
  • RBC on Challenger US job cut data ... "y/y trend in layoffs actually decelerated"
  • Where to now for the GBP? JPM says BOE will move 6 months after the Fed
  • It's the Friday trade ideas thread!

The Australian dollar had an uneventful morning leading up to the housing finance data and Reserve Bank of Australia's Statement on Monetary Policy. These were both released at the same time, the Statement was of most interest to the market (both are summarised in the bullets, above), which took the AUD higher immediately with a jump of around 25 points before it consolidated on session highs.

EUR, GBP, CHF all sung the pre-NFP Blues ... barely much movement at all, EUR and CHF weakened a few points.

Yen was quiet ahead of the BOJ monetary policy board announcement ... and after that it was quiet still. For the session, as i update, USD/JPY is up about 15 or so points while EUR/jpy has been confined in a very tight 15 or so point range.

NZD tracked more or less sideways for the session awaiting the announcement from Fonterra of the 2015/16 milk payout (see bullets, above, for the results). NZD/USD dipped a little on the headline, then bounced back almost immediately before settling a few ticks higher than the pre-announcement level as I update.

Oil edged a few cents higher, gold was barely changed.

The drop on Wall Street overnight took a toll on local equities.

  • Australian stocks took a hard hit, down around more than 1.5% as I write.
  • Nikkei - 0.3%
  • Shanghai +1.9% (Shenzen a gain of just over 2%)
  • Hang Seng +0.8%

Still to come:

  • NFP estimates & reasoning from Goldman Sachs & others banks
  • China data coming up over the weekend - trade balance for July