Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 16 November 2017

We had speeches from Eric Rosengren of the Federal Reserve and Carolyn Wilkins of the Bank of Canada. We had the monthly Australian jobs data lottery, and talk the republicans have the votes to get their tax bill up in the House on thursday in the US.

And yet ... we didn't get much movement in the forex.

Maybe it was Wilkins's cunning plan, but USD/CAD barely moved ... a minor wiggle is about it.

EUR/USD slid 20+ points in the thinly traded pre-Tokyo morning time and then spent the next few hours recovering. Its net down 10 points or so on the session. USD/CHF has climbed a few points is all, cable ... ditto.

AUD/USD was a little more active. It wiggled on the release of the October labour market report.

  • Headline one, the jobs gain on the month, was a miss.
  • Headline two, a lower unemployment rate was a beat, lower on the month.

(see bullets above)

And then the details came in a little mixed too ...

  • a strong full-time jobs addition (and a bonus revision higher for the September figures)
  • but a slight drop in participation

The Australian dollar has seemed to shrug and call it a draw. Its up a few points on the session only. And as I update its just below 0.7600.

NZD/USD is a few points lower on the session - political concerns not entirely receding and some AUD/NZD flows weighing.