Yuan Little Changed After Disappointing China GDP Data

Friday,   19-Oct-2018   03:57 PM (IST)

The yuan was little changed on Friday after official data showed China’s third quarter GDP growth slowed more than expected.The USD/CNY pair fell 0.1% to 6.9376.China’s economic growth slowed to 6.5% year-on-year, compared with the general consensus of a 6.6% growth. It was the weakest pace since the first quarter of 2009.On a quarterly basis, GDP grew 1.6% in the third quarter, in line with expectations but slower than the 1.8% growth in April-June.Reports said Beijing’s official growth target for 2018 is around 6.5%.Earlier in the day, the chief of China’s CSRC said that Beijing will extend its support to non-state backed listed companies, while the PBOC governor said low market valuations and market volatility are mainly due to investor sentiment, rather than China’s economic fundamentals.The People's Bank of China (PBOC) set the yuan reference rate at 6.9387 vs the previous day's fix of 6.9275.Meanwhile, U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies inched down 0,03% to 95.69. The index rose to its highest level since Aug. 21 on Thursday following a steep drop in the euro, as the European Commission criticised Italy’s planned government spending. The Commission also expressed concerns that Italian public debt would not come down in line with EU rules.The Euro constitutes around 57% of the U.S. dollar index.Elsewhere, the AUD/USD pair and the NZD/USD pair gained 0.3% and 0.2% respectively.The USD/JPY pair gained 0.24% to 112.46.