The
moves for major FX rates were in small ranges only, with a half big
figure lower for USD/JPY the stand out. The pair is still in the
range it established on Monday in response to the remarks reported
from Bank of Japan Governor Ueda over the weekend.
Data
from Japan today showed disappointing core machinery orders. Note
though that this is a volatile data set and if markets were bothered
by it they wouldn’t have sent yen higher on the session. Also note
the post on Japanese buying of foreign bonds last week.
News
flow was light.
The
data focus was the August jobs report from Australia, a massive 64.9K
jobs added on the month. The caveats on this were obvious though:
- the
unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.7% with participation
hitting a record high at 69.9% - more
than 60K of those added jobs were part-time - hours
worked fell 0.5% on the month and the underemployment rate rose
The
caveats took much of the shine of the strong headline result. AUD/USD
had traded higher leading into the data release but as I update is
slipped back to be barely changed on the session.
The
People’s Bank of China leant on the USD/CNY reference rate again
(not new news this, they’ve been doing so for weeks).
We
await the European Central Bank policy meeting. You’ll recall
yesterday we had the ‘leak’ of a rate hike coming due to
inflation forecasts being raised. EUR/USD is up small on the session
here.