The forex trading headlines for Asia trading today

  • China March CPI improved to 2.1% y/y (vs. expected at 2.5% & a fall from the prior read at 3.2%)
  • China March PPI -1.9% y/y (vs. -1.9% expected)
  • UK high street retail improved, with the March BRC KPMG Retail Sales Monitor Like For Like Sales +1.9% y/y (vs. +1.0% expected)
  • UK property also showed signs of life, with the March RICS Housing Market Survey Price Balance coming in at just -1% (vs. expected at -5%)
  • In ancient history news, Minutes from the March 6-7 BOJ policy meeting were released. Everything changed when The BOJ gained a new chief and two new deputies, seeing the introduction of new policies at the April 3 & 4 meeting – making these minutes perhaps the most irrelevant, ever.
  • Ben Bernanke spoke, saying the principal tool used to tighten policy will be IOER (Interest on Excess reserves) and that asset sales would come later in the tightening process
  • Japan’s finance minister taro Aso was reported on the newswires as saying ”Excessive yen gain has been corrected” – this was later corrected to “is correcting”
  • An improvement in the New Zealand Q1 NZIER Survey of Business Opinion 23 (vs. 20 prior)
  • New Zealand: QV March house prices +6.5% y/y (vs. +6.3% prior)
  • New Zealand could be included in the Citi World Government Bond Index
  • Australia NAB March business conditions worsened to -7 (vs. prior of -3)
  • Even as the NAB March business confidence measure improved to 2 (vs. prior of 1)
  • Newswires reported 3 Chinese ships entered Japanese waters near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands
  • North Korean workers didnt show up at Kaesong industrial park today, speculation of an imminent nuclear test coming

USD/JPY (and other yen crosses, of course) was again the most active in Asia; it built on it gains in the American timezone and traded very steadily higher into the Tokyo morning. It ran into selling ahead of 99.75, and then the reporting of Japanese finance minister Taro Aso across the newswires as saying the ”Excessive yen gain has been corrected” saw selling hit it. Aso’s comments were later corrected, he’d actually said the yen was in the process of correcting, but the damage had been done. Bids resurfaced under 99.20, with 99.10/50 the subsequent range.

EUR, AUD, GBP and AUD all popped higher in the Tokyo morning.

EUR/USD chewed through sell orders around 1.3040 and triggered stop loss buyers at 1.3050 – sending it to resistance around 1.3065/70. It traded within 1.3050/65, trapped by orders either side before drifting slightly lower as I write this wrap

GBP/USD traded higher with it, to 1.5270/75 and then sat in a very quiet range.

AUD/USD put in a grinding performance to 1.0430/35. It got sold below 1.0420 on the release of the poor business conditions index from the NAB but bounced back to new highs around 1.0440 when the better Chinese CPI and PPI figures came out 12 minutes after their scheduled release time (they weren’t quite cooked on time).

NZD was the quiet achiever today, hardly retracing any of its gains. The talk of New Zealand bonds perhaps soon to be included in Citi’s World Government Bond Index provided extra support.