ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: USD/JPY back under 135.00
It
was a subdued day across major FX in the timezone here. The excuse du
jour seems to be waiting on the US CPI data coming up on Wednesday US
time. Its such a good excuse it’ll probably get trotted out again
tomorrow here!
USD/JPY
dropped back again from just over 135 to lows circa 134.70. So, not
too much a range. And it was a similar small range story against the
dollar for EUR, GBP, AUD, NZD, CAD and especially CHF.
The
drift down for USD/JPY has mainly dragged yen crosses off a little on
the session.
The
data of focus was on Australian business confidence and conditions,
both of which came in showing improvement for the month (data from
the National Australia Bank monthly survey of business). Drilling
down into the numbers showed intense inflationary pressure. Wages,
input costs and retail prices all rose, as did capacity utilisation
(see bullets above for more). The Reserve Bank of Australia next meet
on September 6 and given this data a 50bp cash rate rise seems baked
in already.
Political
news was dominated by the FBI executing a search warrant at former US
President Trump’s luxury Mar-A-Lago resort home. The
warrant was approved by a US judge who found probable cause that crimes
had been committed. The
search related to 15 boxes of classified material Trump took from the
White House on his departure. Although there could well be more to it than just this. With
mid-term elections on November 8, the cauldron of hostile US politics
is coming to the boil. It’ll get uglier in the weeks and months
ahead. Stir in the Communist Party of China’s 20th
National Congress in the same month. Geopolitics is not diminishing
in intensity for some time to come.