Yen Rises After Ishiba Wins LDP Election

The Japanese yen strengthened against other major currencies in the early European session on Monday, after the Japan's ruling Liberal Democrats chose Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister, as the next prime minister.

Ishiba is set to succeed current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday. After winning the party's vote on Friday, Ishiba said he would mostly continue with Kishida's approach to trying to revive Japan's sluggish economic growth.

He had expressed support for the Bank of Japan's efforts to normalize monetary policy after many years of keeping them near zero percent and may consider raising corporate taxes to rise and increasing taxes on financial assets.

He defeated Ex-Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, a proponent of monetary easing, in a runoff election.

Reports over the weekend said that Ishiba proposed October 27 for a snap election.

Data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism showed that Japan's housing starts decreased for the fourth straight month in August. Housing starts dropped 5.1 percent year-on-year in August, much faster than the 0.2 percent slight fall in the previous month. Economists had expected a decrease of 3.3 percent.

The seasonally adjusted annualized number of housing starts rose to 777,000 in August from 773,000 in July.

Data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed that the total value of retail sales in Japan was up a seasonally adjusted 0.8 percent on month in August, coming in at 13.772 trillion yen. That's up from 0.2 percent in July and 0.6 percent in June.

On a yearly basis, retail sales advanced 2.8 percent, beating forecasts for 2.6 percent and up from 2.7 percent in the previous month.

In the early European session now, the yen rose to near 2-week highs of 158.11 against the euro, 189.57 against the pound and 168.31 against the Swiss franc, from early lows of 159.57, 191.19 and 169.81, respectively. If the yen extends its uptrend, it is likely to find resistance around 154.00 against the euro, 184.00 against the pound and 165.00 against the franc.

Against the U.S. and the Canadian dollars, the yen advanced to near 2-week highs of 141.65 and 104.86 from early lows of 142.85 and 105.73, respectively. The yen is likely to find resistance around 139.00 against the greenback and 102.00 against the loonie.

Looking ahead, the Bank of England is set to issue U.K. mortgage approvals for August at 4:30 am ET. The number of mortgage approvals is expected to rise to 64,000 after an increase of 61,999 in the prior month.

In the New York session, U.S. Chicago PMI for September and U.S. Dallas fed manufacturing index for September are slated for release.

At 8:00 am ET, Destatis releases Germany's flash inflation data for September. Economists expect inflation to slow to 1.5 percent from 1.9 percent in August.

At 1:55 pm ET, U.S. Fed Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to speak at the National Association for Business Economics event later in the day for clues to additional rate cuts.

The Federal Reserve reduced its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points on September 12, marking the first decrease since 2020. Traders are now positioning themselves for the U.S. central bank to cut rates by another 75-100 bps this year.

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