The calm was spread across the financial markets in Asia, with traders remaining on the back foot ahead of the highly influential non-farm payrolls data from the US. Amid persisting risk-off, yen regained lost ground, while the Antipodeans were heavily sold-off on weaker oil prices.
Key headlines in Asia
Australia’s Dec retail sales fails to meet expectations
RBA’s SoMP: Growth outlook trimmed, more optimistic on jobs
PBOC may cut RRR after Chinese New Year holiday – BOCOM’s Lian
Fed’s Mester: Market moves don’t change US outlook
Dominating themes in Asia – centered on JPY, AUD and NZD
Today’s Asian session was almost a replica of Thursday’s Asian trades, with the US dollar stalling its selling spiral and making minor-recovery attempts against its major rivals. The US index, a gauge of the greenback’s relative strength, rises 0.10% to 96.61, recovering from fresh four month lows struck at 96.27 in the last US session.
However, the USD/JPY pair failed to benefit from the broad based US dollar recovery and turned back into the red as the yen regained momentum amid renewed sell-off in the Asian equities. The major now retreats slightly from fresh session lows reached at 116.56 and hovers around 116.70. Among the Antipodes, the Kiwi was the biggest loser and witnessed a 60-pips slide to 0.6685 lows in Asia after the ANZ bank downgraded 2015-16 Fonterra milk payout forecast to NZD 3.95/kg. While its OZ neighbour, the AUD, was hurt by disappointing retail sales data and a non-event RBA’s SoMP. The Australian rretail sales came in flat in December, worse than the forecast of a 0.5% increase.
Among the Asian equities, Nikkei led the decline in the Asian indices on the back of a stronger yen. The Nikkei drops -1.88%, while ASX 200 index declines -0.21%. The Chinese equities also followed suit, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite index trading marginally lower, down -0.20%
Heading into Europe and North America
There is nothing major on the EUR calendar to report in the day ahead, with the only release in the German factory orders on the cards. Factory orders in Germany are expected to drop 0.5% m/m in December, worsening from a moderate hike of 1.5% booked previously.
While all eyes remain on the looming US non-farm payrolls data due later in the NY session. The NFP report is expected to hit 190,000 after 292,000 new job additions seen in the US economy in December. The unemployment rate is set to remain at the lowest level in eight years, staying unchanged m/m in January at 5.0%.
Apart from the US labor market report, the employment data from Canada will be also released along with the trade numbers. The Canadian unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 7.1% in January, at the highest level since June 2014.
(Market News Provided by FXstreet)