Yahoo Finance Yuan Flat After Mixed China Economic Data; Dollar Unchanged
Investing.com - The yuan was flat on Wednesday after China reported a mixed economic report card for October. The dollar was unchanged as traders awaited Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s speech later in the day.
The USD/CNY pair was down 0.08% to 6.9514 by 1:00 AM ET (06:00 GMT).
China’s October industrial output and third-quarter investment grew faster than expected, but retail sales missed expectations, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Wednesday.
Industrial output jumped 5.9% in October, outperforming previous expectations of a 5.7% growth, the NBS said.
Meanwhile, Fixed-asset investment growth came in at 5.7% in the January-October period, again beating analysts’ estimates of a 5.5% growth.
Private-sector fixed-asset investment rose 8.8% in January-October, compared with an increase of 8.7% in the first three quarters.
Private investment accounts for about 60% of overall investment in China.
Retail sales, on the other hand, rose 8.6% year-on-year in October. Markets expected sales to rise by 9.1%.
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) set the yuan reference rate at 6.9402 vs the previous day's fix of 6.9629.
The U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies was unchanged at 96.98.
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell will speak later in the day, reports citing analysts said Powell might attempt to calm concerns about the Fed hiking rates too fast.
The EUR/USD pair slipped 0.04%, and the GBP/USD pair inched up 0.07%. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May will present a draft text of a Brexit withdrawal agreement to her senior ministers on Wednesday after both the UK and EU reached consensus on the Brexit divorce deal.
The divorce deal, however, is widely expected to meet opposition in the UK parliament.
"The problem is it has to come to parliament, and all we know about the views of different people across the political spectrum is a deal of this kind is not going to get through," Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable told the BBC on Tuesday.
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