Asia Summary and Highlights 19 November

Asia Session

On Tuesday's Asia session, there seems to be some JPY buying interest with little fresh impetus, except the usual jawboning from finance minister Kato, which came after most of the JPY gains. The pair dropped from 154.65 to 154.03 in the first few hours all Asia market came online. Both the U.S. Treasury and JGB Yields are lower while equity is performing individually. USD/JPY is currently trading 0.33% lower at 154.14.

Major FX is having a slow start except for the JPY. Most equities indexes are quite upbeat except for the Chinese equities toes in the red.

AUD/USD is trading 0.16% higher at 0.6519, NZD/USD is 0.1% higher at 0.5898 while USD/CAD is unchanged. Else, EUR/USD is unchanged and GBP/USD is up 0.05%.

North American session

October US retail sales were in line with expectations with a 0.4% rise, 0.1% ex autos, but with September revised higher. November’s Empire State manufacturing survey was strong at 31.2. October industrial production was as expected with a 0.3% decline, fully due to the Boeing strike and hurricanes. 

On balance the data was healthy and EUR/USD fully reversed earlier gains, falling back to 1.0525. EUR/GBP was marginally firmer but EUR/CHF slipped to 0.935o from 0.9390. USD/JPY ignored the data and later resumed its slide, eventually finding a base at 154. AUD/USD slipped after the data to .6450 while USD/CAD advanced to near 1.41.