- The Aussie is freezing in place as Chinese data comes in slightly below expectations across the board.
- Chinese Retail Sales, Industrial Production both fail to inspire confidence in the Asia-Pacific theater for Tuesday.
The AUD/JPY is trading into 80.60 following China’s Tuesday data dump which saw Chinese economic indicators come in red across the board, though despite the miss numbers are remaining close to expectations as China battles a growing economic contraction as US trade tariffs weigh.
China’s YTD Fixed Asset Investment for July came in at 5.5% (forecast 6.0%, last 6.0%), while y/y Industrial Production figures and y/y Retail Sales also missed projections, coming in at 6.0% and 8.8% respectively. Industrial activity was expected to tick upwards to 6.3% over the previous reading of 6.0%, while Retail Sales where forecast to remain steady at their last level of 9.0%. The overall-disappointing reading is seeing limited fallout as traders continue to fear a steeper contraction on the US-China trade war, but the red ink for today still fails to spur buyers on the AUD/JPY.
The Aussie fell steeply against the Japanese Yen recently, down -2.7% from last week’s peak near 82.80 as broader markets flipped risk flows into full reverse on the back of Turkish contagion angst, despite the fact that Australia itself experiences limited exposure to Turkey and its free-falling Lira. Japanese investors may suffer a hit from the falling TRY as many in Japan were caught holding Liras, but the AUD’s current weakness is seen largely as a knock-on effect of risk aversion, and Aussie bulls are looking keen to develop some wheels underneath a bullish correction to recover recent losses, though Australia’s middling economy leaves hopeful buyers waiting for a solid push from outside factors like positive-leaning Chinese data, though today’s reading did little to instill buying.
AUD/JPY levels to watch
The pair continues to hang near last week’s low near the 80.00 major technical level, a new low for 2018, as AUD bulls struggle to find buying support from deep within bearish territory. Monday’s half-hearted high of 80.85 is also seeing current action capped, and bidders have a long way to climb before reaching last week’s peak of 82.80.
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