Forex news for Asia trading Wednesday 19 February 2020
- ICYMI - China sold around $19.3bn of US government bonds in December
- For the casino folks - Macau to reopen Thursday, Crown in Oz taking a hit
- Singapore's fin min says SGD exchange rate has room to move as appropriate
- China canvassing options to bail out stricken airlines
- S&P sees “material knock to growth” for Australia from coronavirus; RBA will be forced to cut further
- Hong Kong records its 2nd coronavirus death
- More on the RBA minutes (Feb meeting) - hurdle to cut is higher
- Lingering macro uncertainty is keeping the gold price resilient
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 7.0012 (vs. yesterday at 6.9826)
- FX option expiries for Wednesday February 19 at the 10am NY cut
- Gold and yen both on the rise - (once again) coronavirus related
- Australia Wage Price Index for Q4 2019: 0.5% q/q (expected 0.5%)
- China official coronavirus cases increase by 1,749 as of end Feb 18
- Trump administration is tightening restrictions on China’s large state-owned media outlets in the US
- Japan core machinery orders for December -12.5% m/m (expected -8.9%)
- Japan data - January exports fall but not as much as expected
- FOMC minutes due today - preview
- Australia - Westpac leading indicator for January: 0.05% (prior +0.01%)
- China state TV quoted President Xi as saying China can meet its growth target for the year despite coronavirus
- Hubei province coronavirus infection update: 1693 new cases on Feb 18, 132 deaths
- RBNZ Governor Orr says NZ economy and monetary policy is in a 'good position'
- Westpac on the RBA Feb meeting minutes, still calling an April rate cut but cautious on further RBA dithering
- UK PM Boris Johnson speaks with China President Xi - says "I love China" (or did he?)
- Trade ideas thread - Wednesday 19 February 2020
The long story short on today's major FX here in Asia is tight ranges across the board.
USD/JPY shook off an early wobble lower (coinciding with news of a fresh 15 cases of coronavirus reported in South Korea which also impacted to send gold higher) to trade above 110. Data from Japan today was once again poor, although not as bad as was expected for exports (they fell in January but not by as much as was expected). Machine orders though, worse than expected. Expectations of further BOJ easing efforts are being kept on simmer
From Australia we got wages data for Q4, once again confirming slow wage growth, tomorrow will bring the most recent employment report.
Apart from this the news flow was once again dominated, although to a lesser extent than has been the case, by coronavirus. Cases in China are, according to the official figures, continuing to rise but at a slower pace still.