US Indices retreat
Despite the strong US nonfarm payroll report on Friday, risk appetite took a breather in the Asian session, probably intimidated by the not-so-strong close on Wall Street. Across the equity space, there was broad weakness, with US index futures all sliding between 0.1% and 0.2%. Japan shares underperformed with losses of 0.36% while the rest hovered flitted between positive and negative throughout the session.
USD/JPY was among the biggest movers, with the yen sought after as a safety play. USD/JPY fell 0.28% to 111.40, once again dropping below the 200-day moving average at 111.50. AUD/JPY retreated from five-week highs seen last Friday, falling 0.19% to 79.07.
AUD/JPY Daily Chart
Source: OANDA fxTrade
More “progress”
US officials continue to comment that progress is being made in the US-China trade negotiations as the two sides completed another round of talks last week in Washington. The positive comments always come with the rider that there is still ”significant work” left to do, and this time was no exception. Talks will continue but Nikkei News reported this morning that the White House had stated that there was no timetable for the trade talks with China, leaving only a small chance of the Trump/Xi summit before the end of the month unlikely.
Dollar Rises on Strong US Jobs Data
A slow data calendar to start the week
After the busy-ness of Friday’s calendar, it’s a quiet session on the data front today. Highlights will be German trade data for February (the surplus seen narrowing to EUR17.0 billion from EUR18.5 billion in January) and the Sentix investor confidence reading for the Euro-zone for April. That’s expected to remain in negative territory for the fifth straight month.
The North American session features Canada’s housing start and building permits for March and US factory orders for February.
The full MarketPulse data calendar can be viewed at https://www.marketpulse.com/economic-events/
OANDA Senior Market Analyst Craig Erlam previews the week’s business and market news
Source: MarketPulse
