Asia Summary and Highlights 9 September

Asia Session

The Japan revised Q2 GDP came in lower than preliminary (+0.8%) at+0.7% q/q. Key areas like private consumption is also trimmed slightly by 0.1% q/q and seems to be weighing on the JPY. Later in the Asia session, headline crossed the wire that Japan chief cabinet secretary Hayashi cites BOJ's Governor Ueda saying more rate hikes ahead. It would be reinforcing the hawkish stance from the BoJ to indicate there maybe multiple hikes in the coming quarters in light of the latest strong CPI. USD/JPY continues the session's strength to trade 0.49% higher at 142.92 with USD broadly higher along U.S. Treasury Yields.

The AUD/USD is having a minor technical rebound on Monday's Asia session after being down more than a percent on Friday which proved to be short lived. Regional sentiment is weak with opening gap not being filled while U.S. three major equity indexes opened higher and continues to search for higher grounds. AUD/USD is still trading 0.04% higher at 0.6671 after touching a session high of 0.6689, NZD/USD reversed and is trading 0.17% lower at 0.6164 while USD/CAD slipped 0.05% on higher oil. Else, EUR/USD is down 0.09% and GBP/USD is down 0.1%.

North American session

The US non-farm payroll rose by a slightly weaker than expected 142k with a significant 86k in net negative revisions. However unemployment corrected lower to 4.2% from 4.3% and average hourly earnings were above consensus with a 0.4% increase. The USD initially dipped before rebounding and eventually finished mixed, with the riskier currencies underperforming.

USD/JPY slipped from above 143 to 142 on the data before rebounding to 144, eventually settling slightly below 142.50. EUR/USD was little changed, but finished marginally below 1.11 after being marginally above before the data. EUR was stronger versus the GBP and weaker versus the CHF.

Canadian employment saw a near consensus 22.1k increase but with full time work falling, unemployment rising to 6.6% from 6.4% and wage growth slower the detail was weak. USD/CAD picked up above 1.3550 from 1.35 though AUD/CAD ended weaker near .9050 after initially bouncing above .91 on the data.

Fed’s Williams and Waller both stated that easing was now appropriate. Williams gave no view on by how much, needing to look more at the data. Waller was quite dovish, seeing the balance of risk shifting towards employment and suggesting he was ready to ease aggressively should data weaken further, but appeared to favor moving by 25bps in September.