Risk aversion seemed to flee from the markets today in Asia as stocks followed the path forged by Wall Street earlier, but a less than stellar Chinese GDP number sent buyers to the Yen and Dollar. Early deals in Asia saw the Aussie and other high yielders such as the Kiwi Dollars gain good ground early on, with the AUD/USD hitting .7314, and AUD/JPY hitting 72.74 on murmurs that the upcoming Chinese GDP data would be better than expected. As well, NZD/USD hit 0.5935 and NZD/JPY hit 57.85 but once the GDP came out at 6.1% when most were expecting a number closer to 8% the hammer fell and traders fled to the Yen and US Dollar. From the highs, the AUD/JPY lost a full big figure and the NZD/JPY lost a little over a big figure as well.
USD/JPY made a move from 99.50 to 98.91 and the EUR/JPY fell from just under 132.00 to lows under 130.40 in a pretty swift move. The move was a routine risk adverse play even in the face of higher equities. The Dollar improved against the Euro on the data, as the EUR/USD pair fell from 1.3268 to current lows at 1.3180 as of this writing. The markets will look to tomorrow's earnings reports for a few of the big financial institutions in the US to se which path to take.....risky, or risk adverse.
Upcoming Economic Data Releases (London Session):
| 4/15/2009 | 23:01 | UK | BRC March Retail Sales Monitor | 15-Apr | ||
| 4/16/2009 | 6:00 | EC | EU 25 New Car Registrations | MAR | -18.00% | - - |
| 4/16/2009 | 7:15 | SZ | Producer & Import Prices (MoM) | MAR | -0.60% | -0.20% |
| 4/16/2009 | 7:15 | SZ | Producer & Import Prices (YoY) | MAR | -1.80% | -2.40% |
| 4/16/2009 | 9:00 | EC | Euro-Zone CPI (MoM) | MAR | 0.40% | 0.40% |
| 4/16/2009 | 9:00 | EC | Euro-Zone CPI (YoY) | MAR F | 0.60% | 0.60% |
| 4/16/2009 | 9:00 | EC | Euro-Zone CPI - Core (YoY) | MAR | 1.70% | 1.40% |
| 4/16/2009 | 9:00 | EC | Euro-Zone Ind. Prod. sa (MoM) | FEB | -3.50% | -2.50% |
| 4/16/2009 | 9:00 | EC | Euro-Zone Ind. Prod. wda (YoY) | FEB | -17.30% | -18.00% |
