Forex news for Asia trading on Thursday 9 September 2021
- North Korea had a military parade, here is the most shocking picture (a skinny KJU!)
- Société Générale near term bullish on gold, but see it lower next year
- China August inflation: CPI 0.8% y/y (vs. 1.0% expected) & PPI 9.5% y/y (vs. 9% expected)
- Australian state NSW lays out 'Roadmap to Freedom
- New Zealand COVID-19 update, 250K more vaccines to arrive
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.4615 (vs. estimate at 6.4629)
- Update on Australia's largest population state vaccination progress
- Survey of employers in the UK show tightest labour market in its history
- Japan set to extend State of Emergency in Tokyo, other areas to end September
- Morgan Stanley quickie preview of the ECB meeting and where to for EUR
- ICYMI - Ukraine's parliament passed a law to legalize cryptocurrency
- UK data - RICS House Price Balance for August 73% vs. expected 75% & prior 79%
- Kaplan says he would like to taper ASAP
- New Zealand manufacturing activity in Q2 shows rise in volumes for the country largest exports
- Big jump in new local COVID-19 cases in Australia's second-most populous state
- Fed's Kaplan makes the case for an October taper
- New Zealand data - ANZ's Truckometer for August -18.1%
- Fed's Kaplan says COVID-19 resurgence is having a negative impact on travel, hospitality, leisure
- Reminder - Dallas Fed President Kaplan is speaking soon, at 2200 GMT
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 9 September 2021
- ICYMI - Russian gas giant Gazprom will Nord Stream 2 gas flow from October 1
- Private oil survey data shows headline draw in crude oil inventory
The highlight of the session was an hour-long discussion including Federal Reserve Dallas branch President Kaplan. Leaving aside the current furore over his personal trading for a moment he gave a detailed outline of what he is looking for in order to begin QE tapering. More in the bullets above, but the long story short is he'd like to see an October taper kick-off. Of course Kaplan is only one voice on the Federal Open Market Committee, and not a voter this year but at least his views are clear.
Apart from Kaplan's remarks it was a sedate Asia session. We did get Chinese inflation data for August, CPI coming in under expected while PPI (producer-level inflation) came in well above. As noted in the post while expectations are often for PPI rises to feed through into the CPI this has been evident in China, producers absorbing rising costs.
Major FX rates traded small ranges. USD/JPY and USD/CHF slipped a few points but apart from Kaplan there was little to go on.
In China, coal and coke futures continued their heady rise.
Regional equities:
Japan's Nikkei +0.9%
China's Shanghai Composite ... basically flat on the session as I post
Hong Kong's Hang Seng -1.5%
