The forex trading headlines for Asia trading today: Tuesday September 03, 2013
- Heads-up for the RBA announcement and statement at 0430GMT - what to watch for
- Japan monetary base for August: +42.0% y/y (vs. expectations at +41.3%)
- Japan: Labor Cash earnings for July +0.4% y/y (vs. expected +0.8%)
- China non-manufacturing PMI for August 53.9 (vs. prior result 54.1)
- Australia Retail Sales for July +0.1% m/m (vs. +0.4% expected)
- Australia – Current account balance for Q2 -9.4bn (vs. expected -8.5bn)
- New Zealand ANZ commodity price index for August: +0.7% (vs. prior +0.6% m/m)
- BRC KPMG Retail Sales Monitor Like For Like Sales for August: +1.8% y/y (vs. expected at
- +2.4% y/y)
- Nikkei reports that GDP growth (April-June) to get upgraded by the Cabinet Office
- China Premier Li Keqiang: Says he is confident on achieving 2013 economic goals
- Japan’s finance minister Aso: Government will consider extra budget to smooth impact of
- possible sales tax hike
- Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Suga: Fukushima water issue requires 47bn yen funds in total
- Goldman raises its China 2013 GDP growth estimate to 7.6% from 7.4%
EUR, GBP and CHF all dead in narrow ranges, roll on Europe and the first trading day of the week and month in the US.
USD/JPY continued its gains in the Tokyo morning, grinding it out to just above 99.65 before stopping. Comments from Japanese officials re budgets, sales tax and Fukushima say it lose 30-odd points heading into lunchtime. The Nikkei gained solidly on the session (as of writing).
AUD/USD, too, bulled its way higher, absorbing sellers and not dropping even after stop loss buyers above 0.9015 were filled. It took a disappointing retail sales data point to shake out some longs, and after getting above 0.9025 AUD/USd fell back to buying support at 0.8965/75. NZD had a quiet session, it was higher with the AUD in the morning, and fell back with it, but the range was very subdued.
As a heads-up – the RBA announcement (no change expected) and accompanying statement (the market focus, see preview, link above) are due at 0430GMT.