ForexLive Asia Wrap: Across the board USD strength, AUD the biggest loser via ForexLive

Forex trading headlines for Asia Wednesday 1 October 2014

• CDC confirms first US case of Ebola
• Brokers supporting Hong Kong protesters with sausages
• Australia – AIG Performance of Manufacturing index for September: 46.5 (prior was 47.3)
• Bank of Japan (BOJ) Q3 Tankan results and more here and here
• Australia – “House prices flat for September as RBA weighs moves”
• California Mayor shot and killed
• China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for September: 51.1 ( expected 51.0)
• Australia – Retail Sales for August: +0.1% m/m (expected +0.4%)
• Japan Markit/JMMA Manufacturing PMI for September: 51.7 (flash was 51.7)
• Japan government spokesman: pullback in demand after sales tax is easing, economy continues moderate growth

The USD strengthened across the board during the Asian session, with EUR, GBP and CHF all drifting a little lower against it.

USD/JPY climbed steadily from the Tokyo morning, and took out 110.0 on its gain, before settling just under there as I write.The jawboning in Tokyo to talk up the yen a little (it appears Japanese authorities would like the yen to stabilise, at the least, around here) continued today, with even the press reporting the yen as being a little too weak. The slightly better Tankan report (see bullets, above) should give the Japanese authorities some encouragement, but it may be up to the FX market to remind them of the words of that eminent economist Mick Jagger: “You Can't Always Get What You Want”.

The NZD traded lower along with the stronger USD today, ticking 0.7760 before stabilising.

But the biggest loser was the AUD, which drifted a little lower in the mid-to-late Sydney morning before being pummeled on the release of the worse than expected retail sales data (see bullets, above). It has held above 0.8660, though … so far at least.

posted via ForexLive