The yuan was little changed on Thursday in Asia following the release of weaker-than-expected PMI data.<\/p>\n
This month\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>manufacturing PMI<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>came in at 49.2, sliding lower than the 49.5 in January, official data showed. The February reading was expected to stay unchanged from last month\u2019s 49.5.<\/p>\n A reading below 50 means the manufacturing sector contracted, while a PMI above 50 represents an expansion when compared with the previous month.<\/p>\n Meanwhile,\u00a0<\/span>activity in the non-manufacturing<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>sector also slowed to 54.3 from January\u2019s 54.7. The decline was larger than the expected 54.5.<\/p>\n The data had a limited impact on the yuan. The\u00a0<\/span>USD\/CNY<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>pair last traded at 6.6806 by 12:01 AM ET (05:01 GMT), down 0.01%.<\/p>\n The Caixin manufacturing PMI is due on Friday, while ongoing developments surrounding the U.S.-China trade talks are also expected to direct near-term movements.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the\u00a0<\/span>U.S. dollar index<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies was little changed at 95.998. Although not a major directional driver, U.S. Donald Trump\u2019s top trade negotiator Robert Lighthizer dialled back expectations for a sweeping trade deal with China. Lighthizer said “it is too early to predict the outcome\u201d of negotiations between the U.S. and China, as “significant structural changes” were needed to the Chinese economy.<\/p>\n His comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump delayed more tariffs on Chinese goods earlier this week, citing \u201csubstantial progress\u201d in the latest round of trade talks that were led by Lighthizer and China Vice Premier Liu He.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, the\u00a0<\/span>AUD\/USD<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>pair edged up 0.1%. The pair received some support after data showed Australian\u00a0<\/span>private capital expenditure<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>(CAPEX) came in above estimates. CAPEX was up a seasonally adjusted 2.0% on quarter in the fourth quarter of 2018, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. Analysts previously expected the expenditure to rise 1.1% following the 0.5% decline in the three months prior.<\/p>\n The pair later gave back some of its gains following the release of a weaker-than-expected China manufacturing PMI data.<\/p>\n The\u00a0<\/span>USD\/JPY<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>pair slipped 0.1% to 110.88.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The yuan was little changed on Thursday in Asia following the release of weaker-than-expected PMI data. This month\u2019s\u00a0manufacturing PMI\u00a0came in at 49.2, sliding lower than the 49.5 in January, official data showed. The February reading was expected to stay unchanged from last month\u2019s 49.5. A reading below 50 means the Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homepage","category-latest-news","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forexvarsity.com\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forexvarsity.com\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forexvarsity.com\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forexvarsity.com\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forexvarsity.com\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forexvarsity.com\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1264,"href":"https:\/\/forexvarsity.com\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263\/revisions\/1264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forexvarsity.com\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forexvarsity.com\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forexvarsity.com\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}