Forex news for Asia trading Wednesday 25 March 2020
- A tsunami watch has been issued for Hawaii after a M7.8 earthquake of Russian islands
- As China's economy starts to recover its going to be a hard fiscal road for the government
- The surge in demand for JGBs is linked to that for US dollars
- NZ PM Ardern says potentially several thousand coronavirus cases ahead
- RBA to offer 10bn in USD repo operation tomorrow
- CME to offer enhanced delivery options for physical gold
- China has resumed construction of 90% major infrastructure projects
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 7.0742 (vs. yesterday at 7.0999)
- FX option expiries for Wednesday March 25 at the 10am NY cut
- South Korea reports 100 more cases of COVID-19 and 6 more deaths
- China's Hubei Province will resume the operations of railway stations outside of Wuhan starting Wednesday.
- FOX: Trump, White House tells Wall Street execs the coronavirus lockdown may last beyond Easter
- Chatter about that Apple could begin re-opening some retail stores in the first half of April
- US Treasury Sec Mnuchin says continuing to work on coronavirus economic package
- RBA will buy semi-government bonds as part of QE
- Reuters report Boeing plan to resume 737 Max production in May
- New Zealand reports 47 new cases of coronavirus - government declares state of national emergency
- New York City Mayor De Blasio repeats call for US military to join Covid-19 fight
- BOJ March 16 monetary policy meeting summary - full text
- US Trump administration is considering a 90 day deferral of US trade tariffs
- G20 leaders teleconference on Thursday will discuss global coordinate virus response
- RBNZ have bought NZD 250m of government bonds at their first QE auction
- Goldman Sachs see a rising probability for FX intervention if the USD continues higher
- Coronavirus - President Trump says he doesn't believe he will need to use the Defense Production Act
- New Zealand trade balance for February: NZD 594m (expected 525mNZD)
- US coronavirus economic package - Latest from the US Congress is Mnuchin and Schumer are still negotiating
- Private survey of oil inventory shows a headline draw (vs. build expected)
- Facebook says its seeing a weakening in its Ad business due to coronavirus
- NYC Mayor De Blasio says April will be worse than March for the coronavirus in the city
A quieter day on the forex today in Asia as once again the focus was on the US Congress and the negotiations over the coronavirus economic relief measures. As I post there still has not been a vote (and indications are a vote is unlikely this evening in the US) and indeed why would there be when an agreement has not been reached; back-and-forth of meetings continues. Kudlow said the package would be around 6tln, but he was including 4tln in efforts from the Fed, so 2tln is still the ballpark.
Apart from the occasional word of encouragement from either Mnuchin or Schumer there was little to go on for the markets. Coronavirus headlines continued, of course, the situation is deteriorating in NZ and Australia, prompting tighter lock down restrictions in those countries. US President Trump once again pondered aloud ligting restrictions in the US in time to celebrate Easter at his briefing. Fox reported that in private discussions with Wall Street execs he conceded this was unlikely, but still his public words contradict (see bullets above).
Net for the session the USD is a little weaker, with decent ranges for an Asian session but mild compared with yesterday's.
