Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 18 May 2017

ICYMI

The fallout from the political mayhem continued in Asia today but there was little in the way of freshly brewed turmoil.

USD/JPY continued to swing, though, extending its down move in late US time to touch around 110.50 briefly before climbing back to circa 111.20. The focus for yen flows has been US politics, but there was little today apart from the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the Russia probe. So we settled for Q1 GDP data as fresh input.

The data was mixed, with positives and a few negatives (see bullets above), USD/JPY traded lower following the data, though disentangling the response to data and the continued concerns on politics is difficult.

EUR/USD ticked to a high above 1.1170 briefly before giving back a little; there was nothing much in the way of euro specific news today. USD/CHF and GBP/USD are both little changed also.

Australian employment data was a focus, on balance a solid report though the full-time/part-time split detracted from a good jump in jobs and a fall in the unemployment rate. There is more in the bullet on this data above; and today especially its well worth checking out as the it highlights what the RBA thinks on the full-time/part-time split ... like it or not.

The Australian dollar jumped on the data and has since stabilsed around (and now above 0.7450). NZD/USD is a little lower on the session.

Gold & oil - both little changed on the session.

Regional equities:

  • Nikkei -1.44%
  • Shanghai -0.16%
  • HK -0.33%
  • ASX -1.25%

You'll notice in the headline to this post the (mostly) caveat. MXN was sold heavily today, the move being attributed to Presidential scandal ... in Brazil. President Michel Temer is accused of authorising illicit payments to a jailed former speaker of the lower house of the Brazilian parliament ... more here at the BBC.

MXN: