ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: USD/JPY falls back to 145.50

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It
was a session of US dollar weakness across much of the majors FX
board.
</p><p>USD/JPY
is a focus, with the US November CPI due today (the ranges for the
estimates to watch are in a bullet above and are worth checking on as
a reference points as explained in the post), the FOMC on Wednesday
and the Bank of Japan next week (the BOJ Statement is due on the
19th,
Japan time which will be on the evening of the 18th
US Eastern time). Monetary policy divergence, and soon to be
convergence (but not yet!), has been a key driver of this pair and
with all of these events ahead traders are keenly on alert. USD/JPY
fell back 70 or so points from early highs around 146.20 to circa
145.50. There was no fresh news of note, although we did get November
PPI (wholesale level inflation, in a nutshell). The PPI result was,
to my eyes, not enough to shove USD/JPY around, the drop today was
just continuation, in a diminishing magnitude, of the volatility we
have seen in the pair since the back end of last week.</p><p>USD
weakness extended elsewhere, though. AUD, NZD, CAD, CHF and GP all rose against
the dollar. EUR was a laggard, it hasn’t done much at all.
</p><p>For
AUD we had Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Bullock speaking.
Bullock tends to be more hawkish in her speeches and public remarks
than she is in her ‘Statement’ that accompanies the RBA decision
each month (this monthly meeting timetable is to be abandoned
in 2024 but that's a story for another post, <a href="https://www.forexlive.com/centralbank/big-changes-at-the-reserve-bank-of-australia-policy-meeting-dates-for-2024-announced-20230726/" target="_blank" rel="follow">this one if you are
interested</a>). I’d
love to attribute the strength in the AUD today to a hawkish Bullock
but her comments were measured today (summary in bullet above). AUD
rose against the USD alongside much else as already referred to. We
did have a boost to sentiment with China lifting meat import
restrictions on 3 abattoirs in Australia. We also had a poor showing
for November business confidence (via the National Australia Bank
Business Survey), and while conditions dipped also, they nevertheless
remained at a strong level. Two consumer sentiment surveys released
improved to their best levels in many months but are still showing deep
pessimism.</p><p>The yuan was reasonably steady:</p>

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