Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 21 December 2017

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.