Forex news for Asia trading for Tuesday 5 January 2021
- Japan considers halting its business travel deal with China and South Korea
- EUR/USD targeting as high as 1.26
- The NYSE says it no longer intends to delist Chinese Telco giants
- Australian airline QANTAS reopens international bookings (from July 1)
- NZD traders - heads up for the GDT dairy auction coming up Tuesday
- Japan PM Suga says state of emergency decision will be made on Thursday (7 January)
- US Treasury to allow US banks to use blockchain settlement
- JP Morgan on Bitcoin's "quantifiable intrinsic value" (yes, really)
- PBOC sets the USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.4760 (vs. Monday at 6.5408)
- No forex option expiries of significance at the 10am NY cut for Tuesday 5 January 2021
- Italy has widened its coronavirus restrictions and extended them to the middle of January
- US FDA says two different MRNA vaccines have now shown effectiveness of about 95%
- Australia - ANZ job advertisements for December: +9.2% m/m (prior +13.9%)
- More on the Goldman Sachs tip for a further $600bn in stimulus if Dems sweep Georgia
- Fed's Mester: Its going to look like the economy is slowing in coming 2 months, but longer term outlook is positive
- US Treasury clarifies EO on Chinese 'military-controlled' firms - no divestment required
- Fed's Mester says monetary policy to remain highly accommodative for quite some time
- Japanese media with reports the government is considering a complete ban on all foreign arrivals
- US President (elect) Biden says a win for Democrats in Georgia will end the block on $2,000 check
- UK coronavirus - Northern Ireland joins in on stay at home order
- Fed's Bostic says "hopeful" the US is learning lessons on coronavirus vaccine distribution
- Most countries today have failed, all but ensuring that COVID-19 will remain with us over 2021
After gaining through the US session the US dollar gave back ground here in Asia for the session, with advances notably for the Australian and New Zealand dollars, but gains also across the major FX board.
News of note during the session was the NYSE backtracking on its decision to delist three huge China telco firms, they will remain listed for trade. This news was preceded by a few hours by the US Treasury 'clarifying' Trump's executive order (of more than six weeks ago!) prohibiting US entities from investing in Chinese companies controlled by the Chinese military - Treasury saying the order did not require existing holding be divested. There is more in the (bolded) bullets above.
News also of relevance for the crypto complex - the US Treasury (or a division of it, the Office of Comptroller of the Currency) will allow US banks blockchain settlement (there is more to it than this, again see bullets above).
Coronavirus news was, once again, dour: UK lockdown #3 was announced during US time, while Asia say continued to see dribbles of news about a potential tightening in Japan.
The PBOC revalued the onshore yuan by more than 1% today, its biggest one-day revaluation since 2005.
