Forex news for Asia trading for Thursday 4 March 2021
- RBA's Kearns says house price gains are not a concern right now, to be expected
- OIl - OPEC+ meeting Thursday 4 March 2021 -
- China's $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund has hooked up with Goldman Sachs to buy US firms
- China, HK stocks getting slammed
- More on China's market rates unlikely to rise rapidly in short term
- The RBA pushed back hard on rising yields, other central banks seem more relaxed
- Fed Chair Powell speaks Thursday - stage set for a UST short squeeze play?
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY mid-point today at 6.4758 (vs. yesterday at 6.4565)
- Federal Reserve Chair Powell speaking Thursday - jawbone on rising yields incoming
- Australia Retail Sales for January, final, +0.5% m/m
- Australia trade balance for January AUD 10,142m surplus (vs. expected AUD 6850m surplus)
- Here's a 'Fed taper' forecast for Q4 2021, resulting in higher yields, higher USD
- The US issues an emergency warning on Microsoft email software
- Australian PM Morrison says the AstraZeneca vaccine will begin to rollout from Friday
- China Securities Journal says rates are unlikely to rise sharply in the short term
- Goldman Sachs on reflation tantrum
- US Senate will not vote on coronavirus aid bill Wednesday
- German Chancellor Merkel says vaccinations are the way out of the pandemic
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 4 March 2021
- More from RBNZ Gov Orr - says central bank globally are aiming to over shoot inflation targets
The Australian dollar was a mover (relatively speaking) in major FX during the session here today, helped along by a trade balance data release (for January) that came in at +10bn vs. +6.8bn expected (see bullets above for more detail in the numbers) and the largest trade surplus ever in the history of the series. Resource exports booming are a key underpinning of the result (although a miss on imports helped). AUD/USD is up 35 or so points from its session lows. At the same time as the trade data were retail sales (final, January) that were not as impressive but still +10%-odd y/y.
Otherwise across the major pairs it was not so active. EUR/USD and GBP/USD are down a little while USD/JPY is higher with USD/CHF fairly stable.
There was plenty of action in regional stocks though. Indices across Asia fell, taking their cue from falls in the US on Wednesday but Japan and China really kicked on lower. As I update
- the Nikkei is down 1.9% (approx)
- HK's Hang Seng is -2.5%
- China's CSI 300 was down circa 3% at one stage
- ... update -2.9, -3, -2.7% for these three respectively now as I hit publish on this post
Tech stocks are seeing the biggest bleeding.
Coming up from China later on Thursday, there will be a press conference at 9:40 pm Thursday Beijing time (which is 1340 GMT). This is to outline the major subjects of discussion and deliberation at the annual session of China's parliament that begins Friday.
