Bank of Japan meeting and Japanese data to govern AUD trade direction today

By Chris Gore | April 26 2012 8:29 PM

The Australian dollar maintained its current strength through the overnight sessions before it came under some slight pressure in the last hour of the US session. European indices were in the green except for the Cac 40 and the Euro was well bid also until late in the US session. US dollar weakness was helped with weekly unemployment claims that ticked up to 388,000 which were ahead of expectations. The worry being that weekly claims have averaged about 8.5% higher in April than February and March's average leading in next week's unemployment rate print. Stronger than expected US housing data did help mute the weak weekly claims as pending home sales rose 4.1% month on month. The Euro was sold off in the last hour of the session shedding about half a cent whilst the Australian dollar shed 28 pips from its overnight high.

REUTERS

A man looks at a display showing the Japanese yen's exchange rate against the U.S. dollar (L) and euro in Tokyo in this file photo.

Sponsorship Link

The Yen had an up and down trading run overnight depreciating through the start of the US session then strengthening back late to finish near where it started. Traders are met with a raft of data today from Japan including manufacturing PMI, CPI, retail sales and then the all-important Monetary Policy Statement where there is conjecture of if and how much stimulus will be triggered.

With positive leads from Europe and Wall Street the local equity market should be boosted early but this will do little to influence the Australian dollar with trade direction versus the all other currencies expected to be governed by Japanese data and the Bank of Japan's decision when it announced. At the time of writing the Australia dollar is buying 83.948 Yen and 1.0366 USD.