Talking Points:
- Asian stocks slipped Wednesday, but by a bit less than they have in recent days
- Obviously North Korea continues to dominate
- Australian growth data met forecasts but didn’t support the Aussie Dollar much
Trade the major Asia Pacific economic data with us, live an interactive, at the DailyFX webinars
Stock in Asia continued to decline Wednesday, following falls in New York, as simmering worries about North Korea’s military intensions continued to undermine global risk appetite.
The Nikkei 225 was off 0.14% at the close with the ASX 200, Kospi and Hang Seng indexes all down too. Shanghai stocks were hanging on in the green zone but seemed to be slipping just into the red as trade wound up.
In currency trade the US Dollar slipped further against the Japanese Yen, pushing back toward this week’s 4.5-month lows. Comments from Federal Reserve officials about subdued inflation didn’t help the cause of a greenback already suffering from Korea-inspired risk aversion. Then there’s Hurricane Irma which is glowering over key shipping lanes just as the post-Harvey clean-up gets under way. The Australian Dollar headed below 80 US cents when second-quarter growth data from the Pacific nation came in exactly as expected. Some early pointers seemed to have investors primed for better news but, when that wasn’t forthcoming the Aussie slipped a little. It’s still homing in on the year’s high, however.
Gold prices held steady, with a little rethink about how soon US interest rates could rise again lending support. Crude oil prices meanwhile slipped back just a little as storm-linked refinery closures were again seen depressing near-term demand.
The rest of the session offers a monetary policy decision from the Bank of Canada and from the US, trade balance data and the non-manufacturing index from the Institute for Supply Management.
--- Written by David Cottle, DailyFX Research
Contact and follow David on Twitter: @DavidCottleFX
