Forex news for Asia trading on Friday 25 June 2021
- More on the French-German proposal for talks with Putin rejected by other EU countries
- El Salvador says Bitcoin will become legal money on September 7
- Morgan Stanley says they have turned bearish on AUD/USD, recommend short positions
- More on Bitmain suspending sales of crypto mining machines
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.4744 (vs. yesterday at 6.4824)
- Coronavirus lockdown announced for some areas of Sydney (Australia)
- China's Bitmain has halted sales of cryptocurrency mining machines to ease selling pressure
- The path ahead for the US infrastructure bill - "the prospects for success are long"
- Oil - OPEC+ meeting next week, demand is strong but there is fragility
- A snippet on gold (and platinum)
- Tokyo inflation data for June - Tokyo area headline CPI 0.0% y/y
- Data on UK car production: More than halved since the same month in 2019
- UK data - GfK Consumer sentiment for June: -9 (vs. expected -7, prior -9)
- New Zealand trade balance for May: NZD 469m ( prior NZD +388m)
- Germany's Altmaier said expects US, EU can agree on steel, aluminum tariffs before the end of the year
- US senator McConnell says he has swung to pessimism on infrastructure
- Singapore / Australia travel bubble talks have stopped
- NZ data - employment survey higher in June than March, up 4.4 points to 103.9
- South Korea data - business outlooks improving still
- US Senate's McConnell says infrastructure framework an 'encouraging sign of progress'
- More from Fed's Barkin - don't think we are yet at max employment
- Trade ideas thread - Friday 25 June 2021
- Fitch Ratings: Bitcoin hampered by its significant price volatility
- Fed says banks pass stress tests - to lift pandemic restrictions on share buybacks, dividends after June 30
- Fed's Barkin says the current rise in inflation is clearly due to temporary factors
USD/JPY was taken higher into the Tokyo fix today, with market highs falling just shy of 111.00. Since the fixing the rate has drifted a few points lower. Overall the range has been small.
EUR/USD has also seen a small move to the upside (and also a small range), trading to around 1.1945. The only two items of news of note out of Europe were: 1 the EU rejection of a summit with Putin, which had been a French/German proposal. These big two are not often defeated on issues when combined, but they did lose this one. And 2, Germany's economy minister forecast a resolution of tariff issues with the US on steel and aluminium by the end of the year.
From the US we had further ebbs and flows on the infrastructure 'deal', with Senate minority leader McConnell saying he was pessimistic on its chances.
AUD, NZD, CAD are all up small against the big dollar, as is GBP.
Data flow was non-impactful.
The PBOC again net injected funds into their banking system, further easing fears of liquidity issues going into the end of the quarter.
Bitcoin was minorly boosted from news out of El Salvador that it is to become legal tender from September 7. The country's president announced the crypto would begin circulating alongside the USD in statements back at the beginning of this month, but it seems setting a firm date for introduction was enough to help BTC along today. For BTC/USD it did not have a large range.
Euro:
