Forex trading headlines for Asia Monday 16 June 2014
Weekend:
- Bank of England deputy governor Bean says higher interest rates should be welcomed
- Finland’s new Prime Minister pledged to continue program of budget restraint
- China stockpiling oil is underpinning Brent prices
- China metals financing turmoil now extending to 17 banks and 14.8bn yuan in losses
- China power consumption May +5.2% y/y
- China: Home sales fell 11% in May y/y
Monday:
- New Zealand – Q2 Westpac Consumer Confidence: 121.2 (vs. prior was 121.7)
- New Zealand – Performance of Services Index (Services PMI) for May: 54.2 (prior was 58.5)
- UK data – Rightmove House Price Index for June: +0.1% m/m
- Ukraine Russia gas talks breakdown – 0600GMT debt deadline reaffirmed
- Central banks shift into shares as low rates hit revenues
- New Zealand – NZIER “Consensus Forecasts” for the NZ economy
- RBA’s Kent: Australian dollar still high given commodity falls
Gold and oil gained further in the Asian session here today on the back of violent weekend developments in Iraq. The market chatter was that the yen, too, found some support on a ‘safe haven’ basis.
Moves, however, were not large, with USD/JPY off around 25 points from early highs, dragging yen crosses with it, of course.
EUR/USD chopped in a narrow range 1.3530/1.3545 more than covering it. Ukraine, Russia gas talks stopped without resolution but are set to resume (see bullets, above). USD/CHF basically mirrored EUR/USD in its own choppy, narrow range,
GBP/USD had a quiet range but crept ever so slightly higher during the session.
The Canadian dollar barely troubled the scorers, if it was a world cup match it would have ended with a nil all draw.
NZD/USD chopped in a narrow range, too. but as of writing is grinding through the day’s earlier highs. AUD/USD pretty much ditto, but not quite so strong as I write,just below its earlier highs as Kent’s speech is digested.
