ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: Major forex rates little changed

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Major
FX vs. the USD has mainly ended very little changed on the session
here.
</p><p>We
had news crossing late in the US afternoon that US President Biden
was expected to authorise US military strikes in the Middle East (in
response to the weekend news that three US soldiers had been killed,
and many more injured, in a drone attack in Jordan). Perhaps Biden
has authorised action but there have been no news of any taking
place.
</p><p>In
data releases during the session we had Japanese unemployment data
and Australian retail sales.</p><p>Japan’s
jobless rate dropped to 2.4% in December, from 2.5% in November, a
very strong headline but not so much for the details:</p><ul><li>220k
people left the labour force in December </li><li>employment
fell by 120k</li><li>the jobs-to-applicants
ratio fell to 1.27 in December vs 1.28 in November, a second monthly
decline</li></ul><p>This
data doesn’t include wage indications at all.</p><p>Australian
retail sales in December slumped much more than expected. Seasonal
adjustment factors may have played a role (see bullets above for more
on this)</p><p>Of
more interest from Australia will be the Q4 inflation data, there is
a preview linked above.</p><p>Chinese
stocks, both mainland and Hong Kong were heavy again on the day.
</p>

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.