Forex trading headlines for Asia Thursday 20 February 2014
- China HSBC/Markit Flash Manufacturing PMI for February: 48.3 (expected 49.5)
- New Zealand – ANZ job advertisements for January: 2.8% (prior was -0.7%)
- Ukraine – president’s office says he and opposition leaders have agreed on a truce
- New Zealand Q4 PPI (input): -0.7% q/q (vs. prior +2.2%)
- New Zealand Q4 PPI Output: -0.4% q/q (vs. prior +2.4%)
- Facebook buying WhatsApp for $16bn
- New Zealand Capital Goods Price Index for Q4: +0.5%
- Japan – Trade balance for January: Y -2790.0bn (expected Y -2487.0bn) – details here: Japan trade balance, export, imports for January
- Japan Buying Foreign Bonds Y 501.5bn … plus the rest of the data
- New Zealand – ANZ consumer confidence index for February: -2.1% to 133.0
- Fed’s Williams: Expects labor market slack to dissipate and more here, and here
- BOJ board member Morimoto: Japan economic growth exceeding potential despite impact of sales tax hike
- Moody’s: China slowdown biggest risk for South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore
- Reuters Tankan: Sentiment at Japanese manufacturers slipped a point in February
- Australian stocks hit a 3-month high
- US 10-year notes came back a little after the HSBC PMI flash
- UK in talks to set up yuan clearing bank in London
- People’s Bank of China plans to expand the yuan’s trading band this year in an “orderly” manner
Japan’s trade balance (deficit) broke records again today (see bullets, above). But it was the HSBC ‘flash’ manufacturing PMI that fired up yen buying. USD/JPY fell to 101.85/95 in the period following the data point, with yen crosses broadly lower also (EUR/JPY hanging in pretty well, though, as EUR/USD gained 25 points from its sub 1.3730 lows). The Nikkei is close to session lows (as of writing).
AUD and NZD slumped on the data, AUD being marked lower from just above 0.9 to hit bids around 0.8950 and hold there for an hour or so before sellers took it down just a little further. NZD followed a similar sort of pattern, from around 0.8275 to 0.8240/45 and then finding support.
GBP/USD had a relatively quiet session, down only small net.
USD/CHF down small also.
USD/CAD popped above 1.1080 briefly, but a narrow range on the session there also.
