Forex news for Asia trading Wednesday 14 January 2015
- Copper keeps copping it
- Another Japanese compnay brings manufacturing back onshore
- World Bank cuts 2015 global growth forecast – more
- WSJ: “European Union could scale back sanctions if Moscow moves to end Ukraine crisis”
- Australia data – November job vacancies: +2.6% (vs. -0.4% prior)
- China – “biggest economic threat is deflation” – more
- Japan money stock data for December: M2 +3.6% y/y and M3 +2.9% y/y
- Fed’s Kocherlakota: Uneasy about low long-term yields, a sign rates will be persistently low
- New Zealand QV House Prices y/y for December: +4.9% (prior was +5.1%)
- Forex technical analysis (VIDEO): EURUSD: Remains in the Box
- Kocherlakota: A stronger US dollar could slow US growth a bit
- UK’s Osborne: ECB should do whatever it takes to meet inflation target
- Fed’s Kocherlakota: Says again that he doesn’t favour raising rates in 2015
- New Zealand card spending data for December: retail -0.1% m/m, total -0.3% m/m
- NIkkei – BOJ may cut inflation forecast to lower 1% range for fiscal 2015
The big news in Asia today was the continued sell off in copper, and it was hard and fast, down the most in 6 years.. LME copper was down more than 8%. I saw some narratives of the move attributing it to the World bank’s downgrade of global growth (here and more here).
Whatever the catalysts was, though, it triggered falls in other commodities, even in precious metals, with gold down on the session also.
Commodity currencies suffered alongside, CAD lower but most notably the AUD … which was smashed lower by more than a cent from the day’s high. the NZD/USD traded lower too, but not nearly to the same extent as the AUD.
Yen crosses traded down on the session, beginning well before the commodity rout. The BOJ perhaps cutting their inflation target (see bullets, above) may have had some impact, but note that the actual news came out during the London session on Tuesday.
EUR. GBP, CHF took a back seat to other action today.
Oil fell away a little from late US highs.
