Forex Marketz Daily Forex News – Fully Markets Update
Many of the Asian markets moved higher to start the week off, this morning. Asian investors are digesting the recently released Chinese Caixin services purchasing managers’ index.
The Australian S&P ASX 200 was up 0.81 percent on broad based gains seen in all of its sub-indexes. Major mining companies and gold plays made solid gains. Rio Tinto rose 1.47 percent. Alacer Gold was up 2.91 percent and Kingsgate soared 3.7 percent. The energy sub-index underperformed this morning. It ended up trading 0.07 percent lower on the day.
Financial markets in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan were closed for public holidays. This means that investors turned their attention to China. Their mainland markets resumed trading after the week long closure for the “Golden Week” holiday.
Chinese financial markets rallied. They shrugged off worse than expected PMI services data. This was released earlier in the day. The Shanghai Composite climbed 1.25 percent and the Shenzhen Composite rose 1.285 percent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was fell 0.16 percent.
Chinese Data Drives the Markets
This morning, the Caixin services purchasing managers’ index showed that non-manufacturing activity in China expanded at its slowest levels in two years for the month of September. The Caixin PMI printed at 50.6 for September. This is compared to the 52.7 print from August.
The Caixin composite PMI, released at the same time, printed at 51.4 in September. This was well below the 52.4 for the month of August.
The Australian dollar, which is sensitive to Chinese economic data, was knocked around quite a bit by the weaker PMI print. The Aussie dollar fell to as low as $0.7763 following the release. It was at $0.7775 before the data. The Australian dollar then climbed back to trade at $0.7775, seen before the data, as of 10:30 a.m. Hong Kong time.
