Aussie strengthens mildly after RBA left rates unchanged at 2.50% as widely expected. The central bank reiterated in the accompanying statement that "the most prudent course is likely to be a period of stability in interest rates." Regarding the economy, it expected growth to remain "a little below trend over the year ahead". Inflation is expected to "remain consistent with the target over the next one to two years, even with lower levels of the exchange rate." Overall, the accompany statement is like the carbon copy of the prior one. The AUD/USD took out last week's high of 0.9446 and should head for a test on key near term resistance at 0.9460.
The quarterly Tankan survey showed then sentiments among Japanese firms fell in Q2. Large manufacturer index dropped from 17 to 12 in Q2, below expectation of 16. Medium manufacturing index dropped from 12 to 8 while small manufacturer index dropped from 4 to 1. Non-manufacturing index dropped to 19, inline with consensus. Medium non-manufacturing index dropped from 17 to 10 and small non-manufacturing index dropped from 8 to 2. All large industries index dropped from 21 to 16, medium dropped from 14 to 9 and small dropped from 7 to 2. All indices were even worse than, or at par, at Q4 2013 readings. But overall, it's noted by economists that the sales tax hike in April caused distortions in demand and production. And, modest rebound should be seen in Q3. Also released from Japan, labor cash earnings rose 0.8% yoy in may.
Released from China, the official manufacturing PMI rose to 51.0 in June, inline with consensus. The reading was at a six-month high. The HSBC PMI manufacturing was revised down to 50.7 in June's final reading.
San Francisco Fed Williams said yesterday that Fed would possible not raise rates until second half of 2015. He was optimistic that US will return to full employment and healthy inflation by the end of 2016. He expected the economy to bounce back from Q1's contraction quickly and have overall higher than 3% growth in 2014. And he projected growth to say above 3% in 2015 and 2016. Meanwhile, he expected unemployment to drop to 6% by the end of 2014, and further to 5.5% by the end of 2015 and 5.25% by end of 2016. Nonetheless, he still expected inflation to stay below the 2% target for years.
Looking ahead, a number of manufacturing data will be released today. Eurozone will release PMI manufacturing final, unemployment and Germany unemployment. Swiss will release SVME PMI. UK will release PMI manufacturing. US will release ISM manufacturing and construction spending.