Forex news for Asia trading Wednesday 21 January 2015
Bank of Japan statement out – no change in monetary policy
- Societe Generale: 65% of investors expect ECB QE
- China’s Ministry of Commerce: China trade faces difficult situation this year
- Westpac says RBNZ to keep rates on hold until June 2016
- State of the Union address – headlines
- Bank of America / Merrill Lynch monthly fund managers survey
- Thomas Jordan at it again? Is he on the loose in Australia?
- Obama State of the Union address – early excerpts
- Australia – Westpac Consumer Confidence Index (s.a.) for January: +2.4% (prior was -5.7% to 91.1)
- China press: China growth of 7.1-7.2% reasonable for this year
- ASB: Reserve Bank of New Zealand will keep the cash rate on hold for another 2 years
- Most economists see further Bank of Japan easing by October 2015 T
- Deutsche Bank nails the New Zealand CPI with their forecast
- ANZ comments on the Global Dairy Auction results overnight
- If you were the central bank of the year, what you do?
- Reuters poll shows 68 pct of Japanese firms do not plan to raise prices in 2015
- Fitch Ratings say that robust US growth underpins their stable corporate outlook
New Zealand Q4 CPI -0.2% q/q (vs. 0.0% expected)
Early movement today in the New Zealand dollar, which fell after the negative headline CPI for Q4 (q/q). The initial low in the immediate wake of the release, though, proved to be the low for NZD/USD, it then tracked sideways for a few hours before edging up to cover the ‘gap’. Its just above 0.7650 (as of writing).
Staying down south, the AUD/USDlost a little ground into late-morning (Australian time) before staging a solid rally, up around 60 points in the hours leading up to in the aftermath of, the BOJ statement.
AUD strength was indicative, perhaps of some USD weakness across the board, EUR, GBP and even the CHF all gained a little ground.
USD/JPY joined in, it lost a little ground in the lead up to the BOJ announcement, dragging EUR/JPY down a little with it. Once we had the BOJ headlines though it dropped much harder, down through 118 and then just belwo 117.70 before finding any bounce. It remains below 118 (as of writing).
Still to come! … Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kuroda press conference at 0630GMT
