News and data flow was fairly light. A data point that pretty much goes by unnoticed each week is the ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence weekly survey. To be fair it went by unnoticed again today, but it was interesting. It jumped to its highest in six months, with that jump being the biggest since April 2021. Cited as reasons include:

  • the boost to households from tax cuts

  • and a further boost yet to come from various ‘cost of living’ support measures

AUD (and NZD) remained heavy on the session. AUD is barely off its recent low while NZD/USD dipped to it lowest since May.

On the fluid US politics front, the news was that Vice President Harris has secured enough delegates, more than 1,976, to now be the Democratic Party’s Presumptive Nominee for November’s Presidential Election. While the formalities of a vote are yet to take place, these are, well, formalities. What it means for markets is a measure of certainty in the race, locking in Harris v. Trump.

USD/JPY was the only real mover. Its dropped 50 or so points from its session high without any news nor data catalyst. The only thing we really got was, Toshimitsu Motegi, the Secretary-General of Japan's ruling party Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), saying he thinks Bank of Japan policy should be made clearer. Hard to read too much into that.

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