Forex news for Asia trading for Thursday 4 February 2021
- Gold is not having a good session in Asia, silver is testing lower
- Bank of England policy meeting today - previews
- Fuji News Network reports Japan could begin coronavirus vaccinations on February 17
- Robinhood increases limits in buying GME to 500 shares
- Moody's says it expects a lower default rate in the Asia-Pacific region in 2021
- Coronavirus - Australian PM Morrison says will buy another 10m doses of Pfizer vaccine
- Coronavirus - Saudi Arabia has suspended all recreational activities, events for 10 days
- China's PBOC digital yuan may mean the country relies less on SWIFT (and thus the US)
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.4605 (vs. yesterday at 6.4669)
- FX option expiries for Thursday February 04 at the 10am NY cut
- Australian Q4 business confidence 14 (vs. prior -8)
- Australian exports (December 2020) +3% (vs. expected +6%)
- More (again) Fed Evans - stock market volatility will not affect borrowing costs in real economy
- Hedge fund made $700 million on GameStop (pro-tip: this is what HFs are supposed to do)
- New Zealand February (preliminary) Business Confidence 11.8 (prior 9.4)
- Nothing due from the RBA today but the barrage continues Friday
- Apple and Kia finalise electric vehicle manufacturing deal
- A little bit of risk optimism creeping, Biden relief plan gets House support
- US House of Reps passes fast-track Biden 1.9tln relief plan
- More from Fed's Evans - 3% inflation wouldn't be a problem
- RBC like a tactically long USD trade
- Fed's Mester says 'in a good spot now' with monetary policy
- Fed Evans says its critical that the Federal Reserve 'sees through' temporary price increases
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 04 February 2021
- NZ December 2020 building permits +4.9% m/m (prior +1.2%)
- A move below 1.20 for EUR/USD could trigger a significant unwinding of long trades
There was a slow drip of various news and data items during the session, none of which had too much impact. Check out the bullets above for these.
The Australian dollar led the strength against the USD in the first part of the session and as I post its tenaciously holding its net gain for the session while other major FX slips into the red against the dollar. There is no obvious news nor data catalyst to drive the move.
Gold has been weak on the day, its down more than 10 US dollars, and recent market darling silver is lower also.
Bitcoin posted gains above $38K but has since slipped back under.
The People's Bank of China did not inject funds (net) into the banking system today, but they did use 14-day reverse repos for the injection to balance out maturing 7-dayers which will extend liquidity over the new year holidays coming up (February 11 - 17 inclusive).
