AUD Tops The Pile After No Overt Dovish Pivot From RBA

A round of USD weakness on the latest rollback of COVID testing restrictions re: entry to some public venues in the Chinese capital of Beijing and a degree of fading Monday’s price action provided the impetus in early Asia-Pac dealing.

• JPY then gave back its early gains and more, sitting bottom of the G10 FX pile as we move towards London hours, leaving USD/JPY ~70 pips off its session base, last trading around Y137.00. This came after continued pushback from BoJ Governor Kuroda re: the need to debate an exit from extra loose policy settings, which may have had some extra weight given heightened talk/speculation re: the potential for such a move in recent days/weeks.
• At the other end of the table we saw the AUD, which was initially supported by the aforementioned COVID testing situation re: some Beijing public venues, while a lack of an overt dovish tweak in the guidance paragraph in the latest RBA post-meeting statement (which accompanied the widely expected 25bp hike) allowed the AUD to rally further.
• The remainder of the majors are little changed vs. the USD into London hours.
• USD/CNH struck to a relatively restricted range, operating around session highs, just below CNH6.98, unable to latch onto the previously outlined COVID headline flow and another moderation in China’s daily new COVID case count.
• German factory orders & trade balance data from North America will cross Tuesday. Comments from Riksbank’s Floden are also slated.