Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 28 April 2016
- UBS on what's next for the EUR/USD post FOMC
- BOJ monetary policy update - video
- BOJ announcement: Policy unchanged
- China industry minister - Industrial economy continues to face difficulties & challenges
- BOT-M narrowly expects unchanged BOJ today - warns on incremental approach
- Australia Q1 export price index -4.7% q/q (expected -1.5%), imports -3.0% q/q (-0.9%)
- People’s Bank of China sets yuan reference rate at 6.4954 (vs. yesterday at 6.4837)
- CPI: Aussie press on the RBA May meeting & what the big 4 banks expect
- Japan finance minister Aso: No change to Japan yen policy during holiday
- Japan economy minister Ishihara comments (after inhaling quite deeply?)
- Japan: Industrial production (March, prelim) 3.6% m/m.
- Japan data: March Overall Household Spending -5.3% y/y (-4.1% expected)
- Japan headline inflation (March) -0.1% y/y (0.0% expected)
- BOJ negative interest rate policy - behind the scenes of implementation (video)
- What time is the BOJ announcement today? What will they announce?
- ECB head Draghi interview - Low inflation balances out low interest rates
- Responses coming in on the RBNZ decision
- Thursday trade ideas thread - 28 April 2016
- RBNZ leaves rates ON HOLD
The picture to open this post is the USD/JPY in the immediate aftermath of the announcement of no change in policy from the Bank of Japan. If you think that's bad, DO NOT look at at some of the yen crosses. Massive, instant drops. The Nikkei, too, has been caned.
The BOJ left policy unchanged (apart from introducing a loans package for banks in areas hit by the earthquakes, (see bullets above)), despite lowering its forecasts for economic growth and once again extending its timeframe for hitting its inflation targets. As one market commentator intriguingly pointed out, the BOJ now appears to be more hawkish than the Fed. Quite.
The post-FOMC session opened with more central bank action, with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand leaving the cash rate unchanged, and wishing for a lower NZD in its statement. The NZD responded with a wiggle lower and then a good-sized jump to hit above 0.6900. Its not far down from there as I update, holding its gains.
Japanese data followed, with misses on household spending (again), misses on CPI (ditto) but some better results (beats) for industrial production and retail sales.
EUR and CHF dipped during the session (not by much) but have come back to be little changed as I update.
Talk continues to swirl of the potential for an RBA rate cut next Tuesday; AUD/USD is little changed on the session, which is a vast improvement of its performance since the CPI result yesterday.
Late data: Japan vehicle production for March is +1.2% y/y (prior -6.9%)
Regional equities:
- Nikkei -2.32%
- Shanghai -0.68%
- HK +0.50%
- ASX +0.66%
Still to come is the BOJ inflation data (the BOJ produce its own measure of inflation), coming up at 0500GMT.
What a week. Thanks everyone. I'm sure the BOJ will agree with me when I say "TGIF!" ... Wait, what???
