EUR/CHF reached its highest level since the SNB dropped their peg against the EUR, while JPY sees weakness following a lower surplus than expected
USD/JPY was the most notable mover overnight in a relatively quiet session, with JPY weakness being attributed to trade balance data, which saw a narrower than expected surplus (558.6bln vs. Exp. 785.9bln Prev. 1880.9bln), while weakness was exacerbated by reports that Japanese company Sumitomo Life have begun negotiations to buy Symetra (NYSE:SYA), who are worth over USD 3bln. Elsewhere, weakness was also observed in AUD amid a spate of lower than expected Chinese data, including trade balance, which came in lower than expected at 263bln vs Exp. 353.11bln.
EUR/CHF has continued to edge higher throughout the day to trade above the 1.0800 handle, thus reaching its highest level since the SNB dropped the peg against the EUR. This comes alongside comments made on Friday by the SNB’s Zurbruegg that the SNB remain poised if necessary to intervene in the foreign exchange market.
Finally, the USD index has been trading relatively flat post the NFP release on Friday, with no tier 1 data out of the US scheduled for today. Looking ahead, the European session sees the most notable data point of the day in the form of German ZEW survey (Exp. 31.9), while US Wholesale inventories is the stand out data point of the North American session.