Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 26 February 2015

Japan

  • Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kuroda: Economy has continued moderate recovery trend
  • Abe adviser Hamada: BOJ needs to change their gauge of inflation
  • BOJ's Ishida: Japan economy recovering moderately as a trend
  • Japan Buying Foreign Bonds, Y 166.3B (plus, the rest of this data)

China

  • PBOC allows 5 banks to cut their RRR
  • People's Bank of China (PBOC) sets yuan reference rate at 6.1379
  • More detail on China Securities Journal - China has room to cut interest rates in 2015
  • China Financial News: PBOC should cut RRR for appropriate liquidity
  • China slowdown bottoming according to Australian gauges

Australia/New Zealand

  • Australia Q4 capex - what does it mean for the RBA next week? Analyst reactions
  • Australian Q4 capex: -2.2% (vs. -1.6% expected)
  • Australia press: Interest rate cut chances increase as wage growth stagnates
  • New Zealand finance minister English: Households benefit from low inflation
  • New Zealand trade balance for January: +56m (vs. -158m expected)

More

  • Yellen's testimony "read like a test-drive for the central bank's March policy statement"
  • Merkel adviser says Greece has broken euro rules for years, shouldn't be compensated
  • Ecuador won't cut oil output says Madrid
  • Goldman Sachs cuts their forecast for EUR/USD even further ...
  • IMF says its ready to help the Ukraine central bank on FX imbalances

EUR/USD and GBP/USD traded a little higher today, GBP making great ground.

Yen crosses traded higher, with a bit of a sharp jump during the Tokyo morning on reports of an earthquake off the east coast (turned out not a bad one). USD/JPY hit above 119 again but dipped back below and tracked sideways from then.

Gold had another good day in Asia, back towards $1210. Oil lost 50-odd cents.

The big movers, though, were NZD and AUD. NZD found early strength (sellers of AUD/NZD contributing). AUD/USD took a tumble on the capex data (see bullets, above), which was generally weak. it dragged to kiwi $ down a little with it (but NZD/USD has since recovered nearly all that loss ... while AUD had a 15/20-odd point bounce from its lows