NAB Survey Weighs On Antipodean Pairs

Major pairs drifted within fairly tight ranges, there were reports that the Senate had an agreement for final passage on the infrastructure bill. NZD was bottom of the G10 pile, NZD/USD losing 16 pips. Data showed New Zealand July total card spending rose 0.9% M/M. Looking further afield, food price index & inflation expectations hit Thursday, while BusinessNZ M'fing PMI is due Friday.

• AUD/USD is down 6 pips and approaching the worst levels since November 2020. The Australia NAB business confidence index fell to -8 from 11 previously, the business conditions fell to 11 from 25 previously.
• USD/JPY is up 4 pips. as Japanese markets return from a holiday. Data from Japan earlier showed bank landing excluding trusts rose 0.5% in July, the BoP current account surplus widened more than expected to JPY 905.1bn. Elsewhere Sankei reported that PM Suga will ask officials to draft a stimulus package, which would be funded by a Y30tn extra budget. FinMin Aso poured cold water on the reports by saying no new stimulus package or extra budget was currently being prepped and that there were still plenty of unspent COVID-19 funds.
• Offshore yuan is stronger, USD/CNH down 52 pips from yesterday's closing highs. There were 143 new coronavirus cases in mainland China today, the highest case count since January 20.
• Markets look ahead to the passage of the infrastructure bill from the US and later in the week CPI data.