Forex news for Asia trading Friday 29 April 2016

  • Why the BOJ is hesitant to do more ... 8 reasons
  • Where to now for the BOJ? Outlook from RBS
  • RBA's Debelle - nothing on economic outlook nor monetary policy
  • RBA meet May 3. Reuters poll has 11 of 48 economists expecting a cut
  • Dollar on the slide, USD/JPY under 107.30
  • Australian data, Q1 PPI and private sector credit
  • PBOC sets USD/CNY mid-point today at 6.4589 (vs. yesterday at 6.4954)
  • NZ April Business confidence: 6.2 (prior 3.2) & activity outlook 32.1 (29.4)
  • WSJ reports Caterpillar to close 5 plants. 820 jobs lost
  • UK data GfK Consumer Confidence for April: -3 (expected -1, prior 0)
  • UK data - Lloyds business barometer (April): 38 (prior 43)
  • NZ building permits (March) -9.8% m/m (prior 10.8%)
  • Reminder - Japanese markets closed for Showa Day today
  • ECB's Praet: Interest rates cannot be reduced indefinitely
  • Australian budget - Government to invest $50m in cities
  • Happy Friday! Facebook ('revenue soars'), Amazon ('crushes estimates')
  • Clear the diaries Ladies & Gentlemen, 'extraordinary' Greece meeting on May 9

The session started quietly enough, with a Tokyo holiday keeping activity subdued early on. The USD found a bit of early weakness, down (only small) pretty much across the board (yen the best though).

The quiet weakness was soon transformed into more serious selling, with currencies accelerating (to varying extents) against the buck. The yen staged another big rally, not to the same extent as yesterday's in Asia but a decent 100-odd point gain against the USD nonetheless (yen crosses lower too). With Tokyo out there was no fresh whimpering news out of the BOJ, the move was a continuation one with some talk of option barriers being targeted and taken out on the way down. And apparently with still more to come.

As part of the USD slide we had a huge revaluation of the CNY by the People's Bank of China today, with the biggest jump in the onshore yuan setting since mid 2005.

Gold rallied strongly, oil a little stronger too.

Regional equities:

  • Nikkei ... closed for the Japanese holiday. Japan is back on Monday next week, then out on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for 'Golden Week' holidays.
  • Shanghai -0.31%
  • HK -1.4%
  • ASX +0.36%

Still to come:

  • China PMI is due out over the weekend

More: