ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: USD loses some ground

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The
dribble lower for US yields was a factor weighing on the US dollar in
Asia trade today. Major FX rose against the dollar pretty much across
the board. Even the yen added to its Thursday gains, albeit not by
too much.
</p><p>China
was one again a focus. The People’s Bank of China set another
aggressive reference rate for the onshore yuan. On Thursday the rate
was 10 big figures from the modelled estimate, and it was the same again
today. This is forthright signalling from the PBOC that they do not
want the rapid decline in the yuan to continue. The market response
was subdued, the yuan added a few points but as I update its off its
session high. USD/CNH (offshore yuan) is circa 7.3 (just under) as I
update.</p><p>On
the data agenda we had July inflation data from Japan. The underlying
‘core-core’ rate (CPI excluding food and energy, and the closest
to the US ‘core’ inflation measure) rose higher than June to
4.3%. The yen added a few points, but more as a reflection of lower
US yield than any solid expectation the Bank of Japan will pay the
inflation data too much attention. The Bank continues to insist that
the current high (for Japan) rates of inflation are transitory and
that they expect it to fall from around September/October.</p><p>Asian
equity markets:</p><ul><li><p>
Japan’s
Nikkei 225 -0.2%</p></li><li><p>
China’s
Shanghai Composite +0.1%</p></li><li><p>
Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng -0.6%</p></li><li><p>
South
Korea’s KOSPI -0.4%</p></li><li><p>
Australia’s
S&amp;P/ASX 200 +0.3%
</p></li></ul><p>In the crypto space, ETH was extra volatile. The jump came on news on the likely approval of a futures ETF for the coin (see bullets above).</p><p align="left">
(This
chart is from our charting app, which is free and <a href="https://www.forexlive.com/LiveCharts">can
be found at this link</a>)</p>

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