Forex - Japanese yen gains after trade, current account, bank loan data

Investing.com - The Japanese yen gained slightly after trade, current account and bank lending data early Tuesday with the figures showing no major surprises though a welcome boost to the current account surplus.

USD/JPY traded at 114.77, down 0.06%, while AUD/USD changed hands at 0.8626, up 0.06%.

Japan bank lending rose 2.5% year-on-year in October, while the September current account surplus widened to ¥963 billion yen year-on-year and the trade deficit for the same month came in at ¥714.5 billion year-on-year, up 0.1%.

At 1400 (0500 GMT), there's the October consumer confidence and the October economy watchers' survey. The consumer confidence survey fell 1.3 points month-on-month to 39.2 in September. The previous economy watchers' index was unchanged at 47.4.

The US dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was at 87.91, up 0.04%.

Overnight, the pound gave back gains against the dollar on Monday after investors digested Friday's soft U.S. jobs report and determined the numbers weren't weak enough to deter the Federal Reserve from hiking interest rates in 2015.

The Department of Labor reported that the U.S. economy added 214,000 jobs in October, missing expectations for an increase of 231,000.

The U.S. unemployment rate ticked down to a six-year low of 5.8% from 5.9% in September.

In Europe earlier, data released revealed that Italian industrial production fell 0.9% in September from August, confounding expectations for a 0.2% gain.

The soft report stoked concerns that Friday’s report on third quarter growth will show that Italy has fallen back into a recession after the economy contracted by 0.2% in the second quarter.

A separate report showed that the Sentix index of euro zone investor confidence improved modestly this month, though it still held close to 18-month lows.

Research group Sentix said its index of investor confidence improved to -11.9 this month from -13.7 in October, which was the lowest since May 2013.

Analysts had expected the index to improve to -6.9.