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Forex
news for Asia trading Thursday
13 August 2020
Sellers
of US dollars prevailed during the session here as currencies gained
pretty much across the board. Even gold managed to head back up
towards its US-time high.
News
flow was light, we did get comments from US Treasury Secretary
Mnuchin that strongly indicated the two sides in Washington were far
apart on stimulus measures and we should not be expecting any compromise
deal any time soon. Fed speakers continued to urge economic support
from Congress, in a persistent cry from central bankers. While
on politics, presidential candidate Biden and running mate Harris
appeared together to address supporters while Trump gave one of his
regular presentations to the gathered media in the White House. There
was nothing of substance from either side to report.
Regular
themes such as coronavirus vaccine developments and US-China tensions
were more or less absent from news flow today.
Further
on the central bank front, the PBOC was reported as buying domestic
bonds although analysts cited doubt its a QE effort. The RBA bought
Australian government notes today (April ’23 and ’24) as part of
their yield curve control measures (to keep the 3 year yield circa
0.25%). Various RBNZ talking heads reiterated key messages from
yesterday’s policy statement: a desire for lower yields, and NZD, chief among these.
New
Zealand reported an acceleration in new virus cases with 14 new infections
today.
On the data release agenda the focus was the Australian labour market report, for July. It showed a headline beat for employment and the jobless rate, welcome news indeed, but caution persists ahead especially as the next report will encompass the harsh shutdown impact in the country’s second largest city and state.
Gold faded in the US afternoon but has bounced here: