- AUD/JPY is barely moving in response to upbeat China data.
- Industrial production bettered estimates by a big margin, indicating the economy likely bottomed out in Q4.
- China’s Q4 GDP matched estimates, but full-year GDP came in below expectations.
The Aussie dollar, a proxy for China, isn’t drawing bids despite a raft of better-than-expected China data released soon before press time.
China’s Industrial Production grew 6.9% year-on-year, beating the forecast of a 5.9% growth by a big margin and up from the preceding month’s 6.2% print.
Meanwhile, consumer spending, as represented by Retail Sales, rose 8% year-on-year in December, also beating the forecast for a downbeat 7.8% following November’s 8% growth.
China’s fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth came in at 6% as expected, while the 2019 GDP printed at 6.1%, narrowly missing the forecast of 6.2%.
The big jump in the industrial production is added evidence that the world’s second-largest economy likely bottomed out in the final quarter of 2019 and is likely to reinforce expectations for a strong performance in 2019.
So far, however, the data has failed to put a bid under the Aussie dollar, leaving the AUD/JPY pair largely unchanged on the day near 75.95. The pair has barely moved in response to the China data.
Markets may be done pricing a potential rebound in China’s economy and the optimism on the trade front. The US and China signed the phase-one trade deal earlier this week, the expectations of which kept AUD/JPY and other risky assets better bid throughout the final quarter of 2019.
Technical levels
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