Asia Summary and Highlights 4 November
USD opened lower on latest election poll
Asia Session
USD/JPY opened sharply lower at 152.16 from 152.92’s Friday close amid a Japanese holiday. The trigger comes from weekend election polls, which shows a neck to neck race in the U.S. presidential election in the last few days.
The uncertainty seems to have exacerbated move on a Monday open and we see USD/JPY currently trading 0.66% lower at 151.91.
The USD remains lower as session progress. Regional equity index are steady while U.S. major equity indexes are performing individually but have since closed the opening gap and pointing upwards.
AUD/USD capitalizes on the weak USD to trade 0.68% higher at 0.6603, NZD/USD is also 0.65% higher at 0.6001 while USD/CAD slipped 0.28% as oil jumped more than a dollar on geopolitical tension and OPEC+ latest decision to continue voluntary cut by another month. Else, EUR/USD is up 0.59% and GBP/USD is up 0.53%. None of the major pairs have closed the opening gap so far.
North American session
October US employment data was weaker than expected with non-farm payrolls up only 12k with 112k in net negative revisions to August and September. Unemployment was unchanged at 4.1% with weakness seen in the labor force as well as employment while average hourly earnings saw a 0.4% increase, but with the upside surprise offset by downward revisions.
The USD initially slipped on the data but with weakness blamed on temporary factors of hurricanes and a strike at Boeing, focus moved towards Tuesday’s elections and the USD ended slightly stronger overall. USD/JPY slipped to 152 before rebounding to 153 while EUR/USD after touching 1.09 moved back near 1.0850. GBP/USD reversed most of its post-data gains but held up better than most. USD/CAD moved higher near 1.3950 while AUD/USD was little changed from pre-data levels.
October’s ISM manufacturing index was also weaker than expected, slipping to 46.5 from 47.2, but had little impact. September construction spending saw a second straight marginal rise of 0.1%, in line with expectations.