Forex - Yen weaker in busy Asian data day, kiwi focus on OCR stability

Investing.com - The Japanese yen weakened in a busy data day for Asia on Wednesday with key reports from New Zealand, Australia, China and Japan

USD/JPY traded at 117.89, up 0.25%, while AUD/USD rose 0.12% to 0.7802. NZD/USD was volatile, falling earlier in the day on unemployment data, but recovering on central bank governor remarks to 0.7403, up 0.63%.

In Japan, December preliminary wages rose 1.6%, meeting expectations and clocking a 10th straight gain.

But Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Kikuo Iwata also said Wednesday real wages will eventually move out of the current long downtrend, though he urged the public again to be patient.

"While monetary policy will surely influence the real economy, there is a sequence of steps for such influence to spread and thus it takes a certain length of time for the policy to come into full effect," he told business leaders in the northern Japanese city of Sendai.

"In addition, Japan's economy is in the midst of tackling a difficult issue of overcoming deflation of more than 15 years. I would request your patience, with a good hope, while the virtuous cycle - in which an improvement in income encourages spending, leading to a further expansion of production and income - would make more progress as we move forward."

New Zealand's fourth quarter unemployment rate ticked up to 5.7%, compared to expectations for a drop to 5.3% from 5.4% in the third quarter with the participation rate at a record high of 69.70%.

But later RBNZ Governor Wheeler said in prepared remarks that any change in the official cash rate was not immediately on the cards.

An increase or a cut is possible but some way off as "a period of OCR stability is the most prudent option," Wheeler told the Canterbury Employers Chamber of Commerce.

Given the RBNZ's surprise move to switch to an explicit neutral basis at the official cash rate review last week, the speech added more detail to the outlook.

Earlier, Australia's AIGroup services index rose 2.4 points to 49.9, edging up to just shy of expansion territory. As well, National Australia bank said fourth quarter business confidence came in at +2, from +6 in the third quarter, while conditions were unchanged at +4.

In China the HSBC services PMI for January came in at 51.8, below the 52.8 expected.

Overnight, the dollar pushed lower against the other major currencies on Tuesday, after disappointing U.S. factory orders data added to Monday's weak U.S. economic reports, dampening optimism over the strength of the country's recovery.

In a report, the U.S. Census Bureau said factory orders declined by 3.4% in December, worse than expectations for a decline of 2.2%. Factory orders fell by 1.7% in November, whose figure was revised from a previously reported decline of 0.7%.

Sentiment on the dollar remained vulnerable after data on Monday showed that U.S. consumer spending fell at the fastest rate since September 2009 in December, dropping 0.3% as households saved on cheaper gasoline prices.

Separate reports showed that U.S. construction spending rose less than expected in December, while manufacturing growth slowed.

The US dollar index was quoted at 93.95, up 0.20%.