Asia Summary and Highlights 15 November

Asia Session

On Friday, there is a slate of mixed Chinese data with the China's stats Bureau saying domestic demand is still insufficient but seeing green shoots. The Chinese equities have erased earlier attempts to close the gap to trade in the red while HSI and Nikkei is in the green. U.S. equity indexes continues its previous downward momentum and remains in the red. AUD/USD is benefiting from softer USD to trade 0.19% higher at 0.6466, NZD/USD also 0.16% higher at 0.5859 while USD/CAD is unchanged.

The one way traffic in USD/JPY finally met with verbal intervention as Japan finance minister Kato says will take appropriate action versus excessive FX moves. It is just the regular rhetoric and does not seems to be escalating or met with an actual intervention for now. Japan preliminary Q3 GDP came in at 0.2% with private consumption seems to be performing better than estimate but will need confirmation from the final GDP figure. USD/JPY is trading 0.12% higher at 156.43 with U.S. Treasury Yields performing individually across the curve and JGB yields higher. Else, EUR/USD is up 0.13% and GBP/USD up 0.09%.

North American session

US PPI came in as expected at 0.2% overall and 0.3% ex food and energy, but with initial claims lower at 217k from 221k the USD edged higher on the data. The USD bounce did not persist for long, and EUR/USD moved up as high as 1.0580. USD/JPY was choppy, but found sellers above 156.

The afternoon saw Fed’s Powell state that the economy is not sending signals that the Fed needs to hurry to lower rates. The USD bounced on the remarks, which made a December easing look less likely.  EUR/USD slipped to 1.0525 from 1.0550 while USD/JPY bounced to 156.25. 

EUR/CHF was slightly stronger but EUR/GBP little changed. USD/CAD had risen to 1.4040 ahead of Powell’s comments and extended to 1.4050 after.  AUD/USD in contrast had seen modest gains before Powell spoke but then slipped back .6450.