ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: USD solidly higher in Asia, USD/JPY well above 150.00

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USD/JPY
finally made a break for it above 150.00 in the US afternoon on Wednesday
and that move extended to approach 150.50 during the Asia timezone.
We had some ineffective jawboning out of Japan, from Finance Minister
Suzuki and Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary which failed to halt the
rise. Perhaps a counterfactual might be it would have gone higher
without them but we’ll never know for sure.
</p><p>As
I update USD/JPY is sitting around 150.45. There was no fresh news
apart from what was posted.
</p><p>On
the central bank front, it was Reserve Bank of Australia Governor
Bullock speaking again today. She dialled back her recent hawkish
rhetoric, with much hand-wringing and hair-splitting about whether
the rise in Australian inflation we had in the Q3 data on Wednesday
was ‘material’ and would thus bring about another interest rate
rise. Private sector analysts were quick to say the broad jump in CPI
would prompt an RBA November rate hike, but Bullock didn’t jump
on board today.
</p><p>The
Australian dollar fell away, and the initial move did seem correlated
with her more pensive (and misplaced IMHO) comments but at the end of
the day, at least as of writing this wrap, AUD was just one of the casualties of
another strong day for the US dollar. EUR, NZD, GBP, CAD, CHF – all
lower.
</p><p>Oil and gold were fairly flat.</p><p>The
crypto sector is putting up a fight, BTC/USD is trading just under
$38K as I post:</p>

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