Asian currencies head north as risk appetite gets back

On Monday, the evergreen buck gave up some ground in Asia in the morning because traders piled into stocks, crude as well as risky Asian currencies reacting to a softening US-China trade clash over the weekend.

An agreement by American leader Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the G20 summit the weekend in Argentina over to put on hold any new levies for up to 90 days and intensify trade negotiations gave new life to risky markets.

Gauging the purchasing potential of the evergreen buck against a number of its rivals the USD index declined by 0.3% trading at 96.97.

In general, Asian currencies managed to inch up versus the evergreen buck, particularly those more heavily impacted by commodities. In addition to this, the Australian dollar along with New Zealand one headed north. By the way, the NZD/USD pair managed to reach the maximum not observed since June, ascending by up to 0.55% ending up with 0.6905. The currency pair AUD/USD inched up by up to 0.74% being worth 0.7360.

The currency pair USD/JPY dipped by nearly 0.04% trading at 113.53.

The greenback also gained ground versus its Chinese counterpart. The currency pair USD/CNY rallied by 0.02% hitting 6.9601.

Along with the suspension of trade hostilities, the Chinese Yuan was impacted by the publication of the Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index for November, suggesting that factory activity has improved. For November, the Caixin PMI accounted for 50.2, surpassing an estimate of 50.0 and higher in contrast with October’s reading of 50.1. The official PMI hit 50 on Friday, which is below expectations.

Notwithstanding the upbeat tone of the Caixin PMI result, a sub-index that gauges new export orders went down to about 47.7, decreasing from October’s reading of 48.8.

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