With many traders looking to get a jump on the long New Year holiday weekend, currency markets in Asia were not unexpectedly quiet. With thinned liquidity, end of year flows helped jam the Aussie dollar higher early on in the session. The moves helped to send the AUD/USD through 1.0170, the AUD/JPY just shy of the 79.00 handle, and the EUR/AUD saw fresh record lows near 1.2725 to complete a 10 or so big figure drop since late November. The EUR/USD remained content within a 1.2925 to 1.2955 range. With no real major news to spark market moves, we saw end of year dealing as a prime mover in the holiday thinned markets. Slightly disappointing Chinese HSBC manufacturing PMI data that came in at 48.7 as opposed to last month’s 49.0 helped put a sour tone on risk for the day as well.
The yen again saw firming in the crosses as the AUD/JPY shed early gains and the EUR/JPY again looked to threaten the ominous options barrier at the 100.00 big figure. An earlier run at this level in New York just fell short near 100.05 while the move in Asia saw lows nearer to 100.20. GBP/JPY saw lows near 119.35 and the AUD/JPY dropped from near 79.05 to 78.55 for one of the day’s bigger moves.
With the New Year holiday weekend upon us, look for currency markets to regain momentum once we get underway again next week. In the mean time keep in mind that Japan has a four day weekend while the US will be closed for a three day weekend in observance of the New Year. To everyone out there reading this, Happy New Year, with health, happiness and prosperity in 2012
The yen again saw firming in the crosses as the AUD/JPY shed early gains and the EUR/JPY again looked to threaten the ominous options barrier at the 100.00 big figure. An earlier run at this level in New York just fell short near 100.05 while the move in Asia saw lows nearer to 100.20. GBP/JPY saw lows near 119.35 and the AUD/JPY dropped from near 79.05 to 78.55 for one of the day’s bigger moves.
With the New Year holiday weekend upon us, look for currency markets to regain momentum once we get underway again next week. In the mean time keep in mind that Japan has a four day weekend while the US will be closed for a three day weekend in observance of the New Year. To everyone out there reading this, Happy New Year, with health, happiness and prosperity in 2012