Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 21 December 2017
- Final BOJ meeting of 2017 done and dusted - Here are the meeting dates for 2018
- Reuters poll shows huge moves in Japan fund manager bond, stock holdings
- Fitch says the Australia's MYEFO reinforces improving outlook
- Some reports China has temporarily lifted coal import restrictions
- BOJ December meeting: No change to monetary policy
- PBOC dep gov Yi Gang - yuan not yet a real reserve currency
- More on the North Korea defection today - South fires warning shots
- BOJ announcement due soon (from 0230 GMT) - another preview
- Reminder - Bank of Japan monetary policy statement due soon
- Big move in the CNY mid-rate from PBOC today, but CNH saying its not enough ...
- PBOC sets USD/CNY central rate at 6.5795 (vs. yesterday at 6.6058)
- North Korean soldier defects to South Korea (yes, another one)
- New Zealand Q3 GDP responses coming in: "should boost the RBNZ's confidence"
- Australian Treasurer Morrison says needs to cut corp. tax after the US moves
- UK - GfK Consumer Confidence for December: -13 (vs. expected -12)
- Fitch has upgraded its credit rating for Indonesia to BBB
- US House leaders don't know if enough votes to pass bill to avert shutdown
- Germany's dep fin min says high debt, high asset prices may be a risk to economy
- Brexit - "UK demands total secrecy for trade talks with US"
- Bitcoin update (downdate), sliding under US time lows
- BOJ announcement due today - preview
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 21 December 2017
- New Zealand Q3 GDP: +0.6% q/q (vs. expected 0.6%)
- Bitcoin -related share jumps, soars, skyrockets 300%
- Is this a bitcoin correlation, causation, or what? Buy everything starting with "B"!
- PIMCo's Kiesel says stimulus from US tax cuts could be offset Fed hikes
- Its Bank of Japan day! Here is what time to expect the statement
- Economic calendar due from Asia today - BOJ day!
- Coming up soon - New Zealand Q3 GDP - previews
- ForexLive Americas FX news wrap: Yen continues to slide in bond slump
The focus of the session was the Bank of Japan meeting, but early on we got the NZD-moving Q3 GDP report from New Zealand. Q3 GDP beat expectations, and Q2 (And further back) revisions were an added positive. NZD/USD had a trade higher, topping out the session circa 0.7020 and its not much down from there as I update. In other New Zealand news, a NZ regulator blocked the sale of the ANZ's NZ vehicle finance firm, UDC to a Chinese firm (a deal worth around NZ$660m).
The Bank of Japan announcement was early in the expected time slot (there is no firmly scheduled time for the Bank of Japan) and, as befitting that timing, policy was kept unchanged. As was the Bank's assessment of the economy (some changes to sector outlooks though). USD/JPY had a fairly small range sort of session, down to around 113.20 and highs after the meeting registered back around the late US high circa 113.45. There was no signal from the Bank it'll be exiting its easy policy any time soon. Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda speaks at 0630 GMT and markets will be on alert for what he has to say, any hints on direction for 2018.
EUR, CHF, GBP, CAD are all little changed against the USD. AUD/USD had a wobble in a 0.7655/75 (or thereabouts) range but is net little changed as I update. Gold is up a few dollars only from early session lows.
The People's Bank of China sharply revalued the onshore yuan against the big dollar, to its highest for 3 months.
Bitcoin had a dip in the very early Tokyo morning but came back.
