Forex trading headlines for Asia Friday 18 July 2014
Overnight news:
Friday in Asia:
- Xinhua: Chinese premier Li says economic growth this year to be around 7.5 pct, inflation around 3.5 pct
- Bank of Japan Minutes of June monetary policy meeting released
- All china June new home prices +4.2 pct y/y (May+5.6 pct)
Asia woke up to the terrible news that a Malaysian passenger jet had been shot donw over ukraine, with the loss of all life on board, and that Israel had launched a ground offensive in Gaza.
In truth, though, traders in Asia had been awoken much earlier than dawn as the phones ran hot while news broke and developed in the overnight.
A ‘flight to quality/risk off’ (call it what you will) move during US hours which saw Treasuries higher and the USD largely follow suit carried on in the early hours of Asia, but as the morning progressed there was, selectively, some retracement.
NZD/USD has been the centre of attention in the timezone nearly all week, and it extended its slide in the early going, slicing through 0.8680/90 in early NZ trade, but bottoming out around 0.8650 for the session and showing the best bounce it has had all week.
AUD/USD followed a similar pattern, down to below 0.9340 in early trading, stabilizing there and then trading higher 30 or so points.
EUR/USD fell a little further, as did GBP/USD, and both had a bounce from lows. Ranges were small, though. USD/CHF was mainly sideways.
USD/JPY and EUR/JPY followed similar paths, down early and then a rebound.
Gold popped to a new high compared to the overnight in thin trade before Asia got really active and then gave back ground hit $1315 again.
Oil moved higher in early Asian time and stabilised very close to its highs.
