Moves
were not large during the session here today but were characterised
by small, but mixed, gains for the USD. EUR, GBP, CHF and CAD are all down a few points while AUD and
NZD are more or less unchanged.
From
Japan today we had Tokyo area CPI data for August (the Tokyo
inflation data is available around 3 weeks ahead of the nationwide
inflation data for the same month and acts as a decent guide to the
wider data). Two of the three measures dropped from the July
reading while the ‘excluding food and energy’, which is the
closest to the US core measure, remained unchanged at 4%. Underlying
inflation pressure thus remains solid. All three remained well above
the Bank of Japan 2% target. For more on this see the bullets above.
USD/JPY
traded up on the session, to highs circa 146.20 but its since dropped
back to around 146.00 as I post.
On
the central bank news front, the People’s Bank of China once again
set the USD/CNY 10+ big figures lower than the modelled estimate. The
PBOC is seeking to slow the yuan decline and have done the job, so
far.
News
flow was light. FX dealers marked time ahead of Federal Reserve Chair
Powell speaking at Jackson Hole on Friday morning. He speaks
at 10.05 am US Eastern time. Note that European Central Bank
President Lagarde is speaking Friday also, while Bank of Japan
Governor Ueda speaks on Saturday along with Bank of England Deputy
Governor Broadbent. The full agenda of speakers is linked from this
post:
Asian
equity markets lower ahead of Powell (and following a weak lead from Wall Street of course):
-
Japan’s
Nikkei 225 -1.9% -
China’s
Shanghai Composite -0.4% -
Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng -0.8% -
South
Korea’s KOSPI -0.7% -
Australia’s
S&P/ASX 200 -0.9%
USD/CNH daily, showing PBOC efforts to stabilise the currency drop. Successfully this past few days: