Asian Forex Wrap

NewZealand's Bollard says NZD strength not helping. Japan July Manufacturing PMI rises to 53.6, at 3 year high. Japan July Industrial Output up 1.9%. Japan July retail sales +0.4% s/adj, -2.5% yr/yr. Japan July wages fall 4.8% yr/yr. Australia Q2 Business Inventories -3.4%. Australia Q2 Company Gross operation profits fall 7.8%. Australia July Private sector credit up 0.2% mth/mth. Australia July housing credit up 0.6% mth/mth. Australia August TD Inflation gauge flat. Nikkei reverses into negative territory after strong early morning gains. Shanghai Composite smashed down 5.3% at the moment. Gold unchanged at 954.60. Yen bought heavily against the majors and the Nikkei was up over 2% initially, in the wake of an historic win for the Democratic Party of Japan. USDJPY was the focus in Asia today, opening up under 93.50 taking out stops below 93.20. There was a lot of Japanese data out but had little impact. It held initially as speculators awaited fresh USD demand from foreign investors on the back of the election win at the Tokyo fix. However that did not arise, sending USDJPY down through 93.00, triggering more stops and in turn tripping stops in EURJPY under 133.00 as well. Early 2% gains on the Nikkei were slowly reversed sending it into negative territory as the Shanghai Composite was smashed down over 5%. This led to an afternoon Yen cross sell off, sending EURJPY back to 132.20, USDJPY back to support at 92.50 and the likes of GBPJPY back to the low 150's. EURUSD held well considering the amounts of EURJPY that was sold. Talk of large bids between 1.4270-80 and buyers in EURGBP helped support the EURUSD. AUDUSD started the day of very strong as it tried to retest overnight highs. But a combination of softer than expected economic numbers, AUDJPY selling and Asian Equities selling, saw the AUDUSD back below 84c to hold up amonst the buyers at 8380. Ranges: EURUSD 1.4279 - 1.4313 GBPUSD 1.6224 - 1.6300 USDJPY 92.53 - 93.56 EURJPY 132.16 - 133.84 AUDUSD 8378 - 8443