Aussie opened the week higher as lifted by positive economic data from China released over the weekend. Trade surplus in China widened to USD 45.5b in October, versus expectation of USD 41b and prior month's USD 31b. Exports grew 11.6% yoy. While that was slower than prior month's 15.3% yoy, it beat expectation of 10%. Imports grew 4.6% yoy, slowed from prior month's 7.0% yoy. Nonetheless, that's two consecutive months of growth that wasn't seen since February. Also released from China, CPI was unchanged at 1.6% yoy in October while PPI dropped to -2.2% yoy. Released from Australia, home loans dropped -0.7% in September versus expectation of -0.4%. AUD/USD dived to as low as 0.8539 last week on broad based dollar strength but recovered from there. Some more consolidations would likely be seen in near term.
Latest CFTC data showed that on November 4, net positions of major currencies generally deteriorated with the expectation of Canadian dollar. In particular, Euro net shorts rose further to -179.0k, hitting the worst level since 2012. Yen net short was relatively unchanged and just dropped -4k from -67.4k to -71.6. In spite of the sharp fall in yen since BoJ's stimulus announcement, yen net shorts didn't rose sharply. Sterling net shorts rose slightly to -7.5k. Canadian dollar net shorts dropped slightly to -19.4k. Australian dollar net position deteriorated for the ninth straight week to -38.3k net short.
Looking ahead, the economic calendar is relatively light this week, in particular with veterans day holiday in US. The main focus include BOE's inflation report and job data on Wednesday. Eurozone will release GDP on Thursday while US will release retail sales on Friday. Here are some highlights:
- Monday: Eurozone Sentix investor confidence; Canada housing starts
- Tuesday: Australia NAB business confidence, house price index; Japan consumer confidence;
- Wednesday: Japan tertiary industry index; UK employment data, BoE inflation report;
- Thursday: Japan machine orders; China industrial production, fixed asset investment; Swiss PPI; US jobless claims
- Friday: Eurozone GDPs; US retail sales, U of Michigan sentiment; Canada manufacturing shipments