Europe Summary and Highlights 6 October
The USD gained ground across the board through the European morning.
European morning session
The USD gained ground across the board through the European morning. EUR/USD lost half a figure on the resignation of French PM Lecornu, while USD/JPY slightly extended overnight gains, rising another 10 pips to 150.40. The EUR also lost ground on the crosses after the French PM resignation, falling around 0.2% against European currencies and commodity currencies, but the USD made modest gains across the board.
There was little news other than the French PM resignation. The Swiss unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.0%, Eurozone retail sales rose 0.1% as expected in August, while UK construction PMI and the Sentix investor confidence index were both marginally better than expected.
Asia session
Over the weekend, we see Sanae Takaichi elected to be the new LDP party leader, defeating Shinjiro Koizumi. As known as a prodigy of "Abenomics", she has been viewed as tilted towards more fiscal spending and her remarks regarding BoJ over the weekend is definitely capturing eyeballs even it is not a direct order. Market participants are scaling back their expectation of a October hike and see USD/JPY rocket higher to 150.26 currently, opening significantly higher at 149.43 from 147.46 Friday's close.
Nikkei is leading with more than 6% of gains in the equity space with U.S. major equity indexes also in the green while regional equities in Hong Kong and China perform individually. Major currency pairs opened in favor of the USD, mostly dragged by the strength in USD/JPY. Most have closed the gap except for USD/JPY. AUD/USD is trading 0.02% higher at 0.6604, NZD/USD is trading 0.03% lower at 0.5830 while USD/CAD rises 0.04%. Else, EUR/USD is down 0.21% and GBP/USD is down 0.27%.