What you need to know before the markets open: Chinese data a positive for Asia open

The American dollar was the strongest last week, yet we now enter the grand finale, so to speak, given the psychology of the market as US traders return and take-on the latest antagonistic move from their own US administration which hegemonically inked into practice a severe interference in Hong Kong affairs. The Chinese have regarded this as a direct hit as to their internal affairs  – retaliating in kind. China has responded and said that they will take "strong countermeasures.”

Meanwhile, sterling is likely a muted trade considering the latest conflicting polls from reports in the weekend news. On the one hand, we have the latest opinion poll for the Observer that gives the Tories a 15-point lead over Labour with less than a fortnight until polling day, stating that the gap has narrowed by four points since a week ago. At the same time, we have a Savanta ComRes survey for The Sunday Telegraph that puts the Conservatives on 43 per cent, as a two-point rise since early last week – Writing in The Sunday Telegraph,  Sir John Curtice, the veteran psephologist, said the findings suggested that an "apparent erosion of the Conservative position may now have come to a halt."

Risk-on

Heading over to domestic data from the weekend, we had Chinses official PMIs for November which beat estimates and arrived higher than in October, giving a bit of a backbone to risk-on from the off today. It is going to be somewhat reassuring, relatively whereby global growth data is being heavily scrutinised, that the Chinese manufacturing PMI came in at 50.2 and into expansion territory for the first time since April this year. We had expected a 49.5 result vs the prior 49.3. Additionally, the Services (non-manufacturing) improved from a prior 52.8 to a 54.5, a seven-month high  – it was expected 53.1 and as a sure bid for the Aussie ahead of the Reserve Bank of Australia, (RBA, this week is widely expected that the RBA will remain on hold).

Elsewhere in the land of commodity-fx, we have the Bank of Canada's interest rate decision. Central banks are regarded as a muted play on the day though, yet a keen focus will centre on the tone of the statement this time around. "We do not expect them to say much; the Bank may acknowledge recent strength in business investment and positive GDP revisions, but forward-looking components will keep an emphasis on data dependence," analysts at TD Securities argued. 

Nonfarm Payrolls back in focus for USD

Typically, attentions will then move to the US jobs report. Nonfarm Payrolls will be the highlight of the week. Payrolls are expected to come in at 200k for the month of  November. Analysts at TD Securities remains with a view of an encouraging above-consensus 128k October print. The analysts expect wages to rise 0.3% MoM, leaving the annual rate unchanged at 3.0% YoY.