The
two items of focus for the session were the Australian jobs report,
followed by another China ‘stimulus’ briefing.
Prior
to thee, though, were data from Japan showing poor trader performance
in September. Exports recorded their first drop in ten months.
Exports fell to all major markets; China, the EU and US. USD/JPY has
fallen on the session, hitting lows under 149.30 briefly in a
relatively small range.
Australia’s
blockbuster jobs report followed not too long after. Employment
surprised on the upside (again!) in September, while the unemployment
rate fell, even as participation rose to a new record high. The
continued robust jobs market will be one less worry for the Reserve
Bank of Australia, which is even more likely now to hold its cash
rate high to fight sticky inflation. The next official quarterly CPI
reading is due on October 30 and while its expected to show
improvement the RBA is expected to leave its cash rate unchanged at
the upcoming November 6 – 7 meeting.
AUD/USD
jumped on the data release and built on the gain to highs above
0.6710 briefly.
Part
of the later gain in the AUD was on the announcements from the China
‘housing’ stimulus briefing.
The
briefing covered many points, the key takeaways being China to expand
“white list” of property projects to support, which is intended
to complete unfinished homes for buyers and support the troubled
property sector. The size of the support has been boosted to 4
trillion yuan ($562bn), roughly doubled.
The People’s Bank of China chimed in also, a deputy governor saying its examining allowing policy and commercial banks to issue loans to qualified companies for purchase of existing land, and that the PBoC would provide relending support for it.
Property
sector stocks had risen going into the briefing. Those and AUD popped
just a little more but soon reversed course.
AUD/USD
is now down to around 0.6685.