Forex news for Asia trading Friday 11 March 2016

  • Australian court sentences insider trader to 8 years in jail
  • Mystery 'Dude' rattles Turkish stockmarket with massive bets
  • Oil - to reduce supply overhang "more supply destruction is needed"
  • How to steal $80 million from a central bank (but miss out on $1 bn)
  • AUD traders - heads up for Chinese data & PBOC over the weekend
  • China stock & currency market volatility a threat to economic stability & reforms
  • PBOC sets USD/CNY central rate at 6.4905
  • PBOC Open market operations today, 20bn inject bn yuan
  • Fitch on Japan, negative rates, impact on banks
  • China press - Authorities looking at leveraged fund activity in property market
  • PIMCO say they wouldn't be surprised if more ECB easing was needed
  • Japan Q1 Business Sentiment Index (BSI) data. A poor showing.
  • ECB's "Mario Draghi ... His magic has, for now, deserted him."
  • NZ - REINZ Feb House Prices up 4.7% y/y
  • German critic of policy announcement - "ECB policies will always be ineffective"
  • Ex-Fed President -Market misinterprets central bank communication, like children
  • Fitch comments on 'rising macro-economic challenges' facing New Zealand banks
  • BusinessNZ Manufacturing PMI for February: 56.0 (prior 58.0)
  • New Zealand food price inflation for February: -0.6% m/m (prior +2.0%)
  • Trade ideas thread for Friday 11 March 2016

After the huge action in EUR post-Draghi it was an anti-climax here in Asia today.

On the data front it was a subdued day, NZ house prices continue to rise, NZ food inflation dipped, as did manufacturing PMI, and Japanese business sentiment worsened.

From China we saw the PBOC revalue the CNY to its highest (USD/CNY to its lowest) for 2016 so far; after the overnight USD weakness this wasn't a surprising direction, though the algorithm the central bank uses is still opaque.

We did get some movement, though, USD/JPY dipped early toward 112.75 but since recovered to stack on 75 or so points. Flow-driven.

AUD was a decent mover, testing the bears patience yet again with a gain back towards 0.7500. Its just under there as I update and could very well surprise to the topside as we head towards the weekend. NZD wasn't quite so strong, but it wasn;t far behind, back toward 0.6700 and also not a lot lower as I write.

USD/CHF and cable had 25-35 odd point ranges.

EUR followed its wild overnight swings with a 40 or so point gain from where I walked in, back up to test toward 1.1210 before giving it all back to be around 1.1170 as of writing.

Gold and oil wee both acive. Gold popped above USD1280 but retraced is more or less unchanged on the session. not so oil, which popped above $38.40 (CL) and has maintained, around 38.60 and above as I update.

The hiatus that has been the Asian session is about to segue into Europe trading where we should get more action again.

A special note - there is Chinese economic data and a People's Bank of China news conference over the weekend.

Regional equities

  • Nikkei +0.34%
  • Shanghai -0.25%
  • HK +0.75%
  • ASX +0.51%