USD/JPY continued its swings again here today, with a move as high as 147.20 before dropping back to just under 146.60. Data flow was light, but we did get news that Japan’s finance minister Suzuki announced 989bn yen in energy subsidies.

From Australia we had Q2 current account data. This contained a ‘partial’ input to the Q2 GDP data due tomorrow (Wednesday Australia time), for the net contribution of exports to GDP. The number was a disappointing 0.2% for the quarter, well short of the consensus 0.6% estimate via Reuters polling. Public demand (in a nutshell, government spending) came in at a 0.4% contribution to the GDP. Given the disappointing inventory numbers released on Monday the best that can be hoped for Q2 GDP is flat to slightly up. A negative result would not be a huge surprise though.

AUD/USD dripped lower to 0.6775 and thereabouts, holding a small range only. NZD/USD was also slightly softer. EUR/USD and GBP/USD are little changed while the CAD lost a few tics (higher USD/CAD) also.

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