Forex and Bitcoin news for Asia trading Monday 10 December 2018
- Trump economic adviser Kudlow says slower inflation could cause Fed to slow hikes
- China trade data - monthly copper imports dropped for the first time this year
- NAB AUD and NZD forecasts (lower AUD against the NZD)
- Goldman Sachs wind back their 4 Fed rate hike forecast in 2019, March not likely
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY mid-point today at 6.8693 (vs. Friday at 6.8664)
- Morgan Stanley cut their oil price forecast (Brent to $68.50/bbl from $78.50)
- New Zealand Treasury Monthly Economic Indicators
- NZIER Consensus Forecasts shows growth outlook broadly unchanged
- Comments on the Fed, the USD, NFP, year end … a bit of everything!
- China state media: government should slow deleveraging, tolerate bigger budget deficit
- Australia October home loans +2.2% m/m (expected -0.4%)
- Japan's Q3 GDP was awful, a yen negative, but will it be brushed aside?
- JP Morgan (have a big bull forecast) blame fake news for stock market falls
- Japan Q3 GDP (final) -0.6% q/q (preliminary was -0.3%)
- Japan October BoP Current Account Balance, ¥ 1309.9bn (expected ¥ 1262.7B)
- JP Morgan sees a good rise for the S&P500 …. ummm …. by the end of 2019
- OECD warns Australian govt to "prepare contingency plans" if housing prices crash
- W/e: 'Mass exodus' at Japan Investment Corp
- W/e: China’s top steelmaking city to make additional output cuts
- More on the US 'hard deadline' for the China trade deal … the clock is counting down
- RBA's Kent: Next Australian rate move likely to be up, but not any time soon
- Weekend: IMF chief economist says US economy set to slow
- New Zealand Q3 manufacturing activity volume for Q3, -1.6% q/q
- RBA's Kent says getting close to time US monetary policy is moving to neutral stance
- Weekend - US trade rep Lighhizer says 90 days is a hard deadline for China
- US politics - choice for new White House Chief of Staff declines the job
- Brexit vote Dec. 11- DUP confirms it will be voting against May's deal
- China inflation data was out over the weekend, CPI 2.2% for Nov., from 2.5% in Oct.
- OPEC deal and near term oil prices
- Monday morning FX - 10 December 2018 - foreign exchange prices, early indications
- WSJ: Details of US/China to include large purchases in coming weeks
- What is Goodhart's law
- China trade balance (Nov.), exports and imports fall from Oct. and miss median estimates
EUR, AUD, GBP all opened a little lower in early trade as NZ kicked off the week. A key factor was the weakness in the Chinese November trade data released over the weekend, against a background of less favour for risk generally. When Globex opened US stock index futures were sold also. Yen was a beneficiary of flows, USD/JPY slid under 112.50 and over following hours extended to under 112.30 before showing some support.
As morning trade in Asia progressed the gaps lower in EUR, AUD, GBP against the USD all retraced fully and then currencies added gains quickly. US yield moves, and also a report from Goldman Sachs dialling back their expectations for Federal Reserve rate hikes in 2019 contributed. US equity futures have not shown much recovery (as I post) though. Regional share markets here are also lower.
AUD/USD was helped higher by better housing finance data also. Only one month's data, sure, but the positives came as a bit of a surprise and will cast doubt on the weak story being told (other indicators are not nearly so positive). We now enter the seasonally quiet construction sector period into and over Christmas/New Year in Australia, further housing market data will be patchy during this.
NZD/USD had a good gain here also. GBP remains volatile ahead of the vote in parliament due Tuesday. The usual 'PM May at risk' headlines were out over the weekend. Perhaps the anti-May folks who have been noisily and wrongly predicting her downfall for the past two years or so may finally get something right?
We got final Japanese GDP data for Q3 of 2018. Ordinarily this wouldn't get much of a mention in the wrap, but the final results were much, much worse than the preliminary.
Still to come:
