Forex news for Asia trading Friday 22 January 2016
- China government to take direct approach to managing coal & steel capacity cuts, layoffs
- Plunging oil prices - blame Canada (yeah, I'm lookin' at you AB)
- UK's Osborne hitting the cocktails again - what he is going to say on Friday
- See, the problem is, on China, that investors are overreacting, freaking out
- Morgan Stanley say 2 rate cuts from RBA in 2016 - 'far from priced in'
- China labour ministry says urban unemployment rate remained at 4.05% at end 2015
- AUD/USD traders - Australian inflation due next week, what is expected
- Japan data - Nikkei 'flash' manufacturing PMI (January): 52.4 (expected 52.8)
- Japan confirms it has lifted sanctions in Iran
- People’s Bank of China (PBOC) sets yuan reference rate at 6.5572
- Goldman Sachs forecast EUR/USD to 0.95: "Downside is again compelling"
- George Soros on China: "A hard landing is practically unavoidable"
- GBP - Goldman Sachs anti-Brexit vote. They've put a huge cash bet on it.
- Moody's has slashed its oil price forecasts
- Technical analysis from Soc Gen - EUR/USD, GBP/USD
- ICYMI - Saudi Arabia says $30 oil is ‘irrational’
- Boeing to reduce 747 production rate, take a $569 million after-tax charge
- Trade ideas thread for Friday 22 January 2016
- US stocks end the day higher. Nasdaq lags.
- Nikkei reports BOJ is considering additional easing
The 'More BOJ easing coming' story just won't go away - the Nikkei carried a story early in the Tokyo morning, saying the BOJ "is taking a serious look at expanding its monetary easing measures". The Nikkei surged, the yen lost ground against the USD (a bit), trading up a little above 117.90 and finding sellers holding the line there. As of writing its testing session highs again (for the third time) with the Nikkei 225 +4% on the day.
China developments were more orderly today. The USD/CNY fix came and went with little drama, the yuan mid point being strengthened a hair again by the People's Bank of China today.
Chinese stock markets opened higher (by around 1% on yesterday) but have since given it back, the Shanghai Composite slightly negative as of the lunch break.
After covering its post-ECB 'gap' in NY trading the EUR/USD topped out early here above 1.0880 and slipped lower for the balance of the session toward 1.0830, where it is close to as I write.
AUD/USD and NZD/USD maintained their overnight gains, the NZD putting on a bit more of a spurt before settling sideways with the AUD. USD/CHF and Cable have both been fairly flat in narrow ranges.
Gold is barely changed on the session, even oil is much calmer.
In all, a sedate FX range session with regional equities the movers, the Nikkei a stand out.
A special note on the HKD. Despite the talk of peg pressure it gained its most for about 4 years today to take some of the strain off. Its still down on the week, though.
Regional equities with Shanghai closed for the lunch break:
- Nikkei +4.22%
- Shanghai -0.28%
- HK +1.41%
- ASX +1.01%