AUD/JPY rises to 74.25 after second-tier data concerning the Australian economic crossed wires amid Thursday’s Asian session. The pair seems to have given major attention to the broad risk recovery while flashing gains.
Australia’s December month Retail Sales contracted well below 0.2% forecast to 0.5% whereas Trade Balance also softened to 5,223M against 5,950M expected. Details suggest the improvement in Imports to 2% from -3% prior versus a soft Exports figure of 1% against 2% earlier. Further, the National Australia Bank’s (NAB) Business Confidence for the fourth quarter (Q4) matched the upwardly revised prior reading of -1 compared to the market consensus of +3.