Forex Today: Antipodeans slip as China imports plunge; focus on UK data
The Asian traders cheered the US-Mexico trade progress and increased bets of a Fed rate cut at the start of a brand-new holiday-thinned week, as reflected by the risk-on rally in the Asian equities. However, the optimism soon faded somewhat after the Chinese trade data showed the country’s imports slumped the most in nearly three months, leading to a bigger-than-expected expansion in the trade surplus. The poor data re-ignited the China slowdown fears and weighed on the domestic currency and the Chinese proxies, the Antipodeans.
The Kiwi was the biggest loser and fell back below the 0.6650 barrier while the Aussie lost nearly 0.40% to test the 0.6970 level. Meanwhile, the USD/CNY pair hit fresh yearly tops of 6.9358. The USD/JPY pair was boosted by better risk sentiment and flirted with daily tops near 108.60 region, having witnessed a bullish opening gap on positive trade news.
On the other hand, both the European currency pairs, EUR/USD and Cable traded on the back foot amid a broad-based US dollar recovery Amongst the commodities, both crude benchmarks advanced on Saudi’s bullish view on the output cut policy while gold futures on Comex fell back towards 1330 levels amid higher equities and Treasury yields.
Main Topics in Asia
USD/MXN plummets to 19.27 as Mexican Peso cheers deal to avoid US tariffs
G20: Trade and geopolitical tensions have “intensified”
PBoC governor says no specific level for the yuan is important - BBG
EU to warn business not to expect help over a no-deal Brexit – Financial Times
Gold snaps back on risk-on start to Asia
China FX Regulator (SAFE): Volatility in global financial Markets may increase
China’s trade balance (CNY): Surplus expands in May, a big beat
China’s May trade data (USD): Exports unexpectedly rebound, imports plunge
China trade surplus with US arrived at $26.89B in May vs. $21.01B previous
China rare earth exports drop 16% in May
NZ Treasury: Annual trade deficit narrows and terms of trade improve
S. Korea, UK agree to sign free trade deal ahead of Brexit - Reuters
WTI recovers previous losses amid China-positive catalysts
Key Focus Ahead
The focus in today’s EUR macro calendar will be on a slew of fresh UK economic releases, including the monthly GDP, trade balance, industrial and manufacturing production data, all of which will be reported at 0830 GMT. At the same time, markets will look forward to the Eurozone June Sentix Investor Confidence data for some trading impetus on the Euro, as the German, Swiss and French markets are closed today in observance of Whit Monday.
The NA session remains data-sparse, with Canadian housing starts and building permits data due on the cards at 1215 GMT, followed by the US JOLTS job openings data release at 1400 GMT. The speech by the Bank of England (BOE) board member Saunders at 1700 GMT will also grab some attention.
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Author
Dhwani Mehta
FXStreet
Residing in Mumbai (India), Dhwani is a Senior Analyst and Manager of the Asian session at FXStreet. She has over 10 years of experience in analyzing and covering the global financial markets, with specialization in Forex and commodities markets.
