Forex and Bitcoin news for Asia trading Tuesday 6 February 2018

It was all about the stock market fall today - US stocks plunged on Monday and that followed though here today in Asia with local exchanges opening lower (d'uh) and then falling further:

The fallout for forex was relatively minor during the session here. 'Risk' had fallen during the Monday US session but extensions here were small only.

The yen and gold managed a pop. USD/JPY down toward 108.50 and the yellow rock rocking it towards $1346.

AUD/USD fell in line, but the fall was limited especially as given data for it today was a miss on both the trade balance and retail sales (for December). Details for both were not as bad as the headline, but not great either (see bullets above). The AUD response to the RBA announcement was tiny - barely anything to the as expected announcement. Yes, that's right, the RBA's first meeting of the year was today ... good day for it, eh? Welcome back, gang ....

An 'on hold' decision was unanimously expected and that's what we got. More detail on changes in the statement in the bullets, above.