Asia Summary and Highlights 13 August

Asia Session

Headline of Iranian attack is not happening tonight supported the overall risk mood. Nikkei is up another three percent and bring it to level last seen on 2nd August 2024. U.S. Treasury and JGB yields are performing individually. With Japan June PPI steadies, USD/JPY is trading 0.37% higher at 147.73. Regional equities are performing individually with Chinese equities slightly in the red, U.S. three major equity indexes are all in the green.

The Q2 Australian wage shows no sign of further acceleration and should lead to cooler CPI in the coming quarters. The RBA has pushed back rate cut expectation on stronger than forecast CPI, such wage growth may affect their thinking in the coming meetings. AUD/USD is trading 0.09% higher at 0.6592, NZD/USD is 0.24% higher at 0.6032 while USD/CAD slipped 0.03% despite oil gains paused. Else, EUR/USD is up 0.07% and GBP/USD is up 0.12%.

North American session

Early in the session upward momentum in USD/JPY accelerated above 148, though as early equity gains faded and UST yields slipped a decline back to near 147.15 was seen. Otherwise there was not much movement. The commodity currencies saw marginal slippage. EUR/USD made marginal gains in a tight 1.0910 to 1.0940 range, while GBP/USD found sellers near 1.28 before ending little changed.

News was limited. The New York Fed survey of consumer inflation expectations saw a significant dip in the 3-year view to 2.3% from 2.9% but this was somewhat puzzling when the 1 and 5 year views were almost unchanged at 3.0% and 2.8% respectively.