Asia Session

Today in Asia the Yen made gains on good, but not great Chinese data as traders took the cue to dump out of higher yielding risk assets, especially the Aussie and Kiwi dollars. China's industrial output showed the fastest output in almost nine months, but it wasn't enough to satisfy investors as the data fell a bit short of lofty expectations.
Consumer as well as producer prices were also short of expectations, and slightly better than anticipated trade balance and retail sales were largely ignored as traders had obviously found a reason to buy the yen. Many look at China as a barometer of the global economy, and when it seemed that it wasn't on the track most expected, the flight to risk aversion was on.

EUR/JPY dropped below 136.45 on the session after earlier enjoying levels over a big figure higher. A downgrade of Estonia and Latvia by Standard and Poors helped to accelerate the move with a weaker Euro. GBP/JPY took a hard hit as well; dropping from early highs over 160.20 to near 158.90 after the Chinese data was released. AUD/JPY took losses to the tune of 1% as the pair slid from highs near 81.45 to lows just under 80.40. NZD/JPY fared a little better as it bottomed out at the 65.00 figure after previous highs 75 pips higher.

The Dollar lost ground against the Yen as well today, as the USD/JPY pair quickly forgot its 97.20 highs and looked to exit the day closer to 96.60. The Bank of Japan as expected left rates unchanged at 0.10% to no ones surprise. The EUR/USD pair was very quiet in comparison, starting the day near 1.4140 and trading in a 34 pip session before subsequently ending the session near the same 1.4140 levels where it all began. GBP/USD temporality got above the 1.6520 level, but was closer to the opening level of 1.6470 as the session wound down. The dollar is likely to find direction once the FOMC concludes its two day meeting which will begin tomorrow in the US.

Upcoming Economic Data Releases (London Session) prior expected