ForexLive Asia Wrap: China's Official PMI Comes in Below Expectations

China January Manufacturing PMI 50.4 (vs. 51.0 expected)* China January HSBC Manufacturing PMI 52.3 (vs. 52.0 expected) Australia January AIG PMI 40.2 (vs. 44.3 previously); the 11 consecutive month of contraction in this index and the lowest in 3 years Australia January RP Data – Rismark House Prices +1.2% (vs. -0.3% previously) Japan December  Household Spending Falls 0.7% (vs. fall of 0.2% expected) Japan December Unemployment at 4.2% (vs. 4.1% expected) Japan December Job-to-Applicant Ratio increases to 0.82 (vs. 0.8 expected) RBNZ's Wheeler comments Australia PPI +0.2% Q/Q (vs +0.3% expected) Australia PPI +1.0% Y/Y (vs. +1.2% expected) Japan Finance Minister Aso to refute claims about Yen manipulation at G20 Japan Econ. Minister Amari: Doesn't see need to change BOJ Law   The Yen continued its fall during the Asian session, taking out USD/JPY sell orders at 91.50 in the morning and then through 91.80 and 92.00 in the afternoon. Economic releases and ministerial comments out of Japan had no impact today, it was just trend continuation. EUR/USD, too, was bid, though not to quite the same extent. Again, the moves were not on news, just trend continuation. Put the two together and you get EUR/JPY on its highs around 125.70 as of writing this report. AUD/USD and NZD/USD had a bid tone in the morning ahead of the Chinese PMI release, but the lower than expected result for the Chinese official figure knocked the two back. The NZD continues to outperform, the bigger loser was the AUD. Both caught a bit of a bid on the release of the better than expected HSBC PMI, but the damage was done and continued selling took them to new lows as of writing as the USD/JPY makes new highs. *Special note: The sample size used by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics increased from 820 to 3000 for this survey, which adds difficulty in comparing today's release to previous results.