It was a session of US dollar weakness across much of the majors FX board.

USD/JPY is a focus, with the US November CPI due today (the ranges for the estimates to watch are in a bullet above and are worth checking on as a reference points as explained in the post), the FOMC on Wednesday and the Bank of Japan next week (the BOJ Statement is due on the 19th, Japan time which will be on the evening of the 18th US Eastern time). Monetary policy divergence, and soon to be convergence (but not yet!), has been a key driver of this pair and with all of these events ahead traders are keenly on alert. USD/JPY fell back 70 or so points from early highs around 146.20 to circa 145.50. There was no fresh news of note, although we did get November PPI (wholesale level inflation, in a nutshell). The PPI result was, to my eyes, not enough to shove USD/JPY around, the drop today was just continuation, in a diminishing magnitude, of the volatility we have seen in the pair since the back end of last week.

USD weakness extended elsewhere, though. AUD, NZD, CAD, CHF and GP all rose against the dollar. EUR was a laggard, it hasn’t done much at all.

For AUD we had Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Bullock speaking. Bullock tends to be more hawkish in her speeches and public remarks than she is in her ‘Statement’ that accompanies the RBA decision each month (this monthly meeting timetable is to be abandoned in 2024 but that's a story for another post, this one if you are interested). I’d love to attribute the strength in the AUD today to a hawkish Bullock but her comments were measured today (summary in bullet above). AUD rose against the USD alongside much else as already referred to. We did have a boost to sentiment with China lifting meat import restrictions on 3 abattoirs in Australia. We also had a poor showing for November business confidence (via the National Australia Bank Business Survey), and while conditions dipped also, they nevertheless remained at a strong level. Two consumer sentiment surveys released improved to their best levels in many months but are still showing deep pessimism.

The yuan was reasonably steady:

usdcnh wrap chart 12 December 2023