Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 16 April 2015

Australia:

  • Australia employment report - quick recap from Bloomberg (worth a read)
  • Other AUD data - New vehicle sales for March to highest in 21 months
  • Australia March employment change: +37.7K (vs. +15K expected)
  • Australia - Consumer inflation expectations for April: 3.4% y/y (prior was 3.2%)

Federal Reserve's Lacker & Potter

  • More again from Fed's Lacker
  • Comments from Fed's Lacker now on monetary policy
  • Fed's Lacker - comments on US labour market, but not on monetary policy
  • More from NY Fed's Potter: Option open to taper reinvestments of Fed's balance sheet
  • NY Fed's Potter: NY Fed market desk is ready for rate lift off

New Zealand:

  • NZ finance minister English: New Zealand has sustainably growing economy
  • Westpac has lowered its forecast for Fonterra 2015-16 milk payout
  • New Zealand - BusinessNZ manufacturing PMI for March: 54.5 (prior was 56.1 revised from 55.9)
  • New Zealand - ANZ job advertisements for March: -0.8% m/m (prior was +0.7%)
  • NZD - more on the overnight Global Dairy Trade auction
  • BOJ board likely to lower forecast slightly for inflation, modify timing to hit target
  • BoA/Merrill Lynch says Q2 2015 is Q4 2014 in reverse
  • EUR/USD jumps 50 points - no news is news
  • BNP ... "It is still a dollar-bull story" ... more
  • UK data - RICS - House prices grow at fastest pace for 5 months
  • China - Securities Times: Economic growth may rebound in H2
  • German finance minister Schaeuble: Debt ratio in euro area higher than ever
  • BOJ's Kuroda comments to Japan PM Abe were left off the record in 'tense' meeting
  • US Treasury Secretary Lew: Sees strong year forecast

The session started off quietly enough, with the USD reasonably flat across the board. It soon began to lose ground, though, and then saw a surge in EUR/USD (stop loss buyers cited) above 1.0680 and quickly to just below 1.0750. Other currencies gained as well along with the EUR.

A quiet drift lower began then after a period of stabilising just under session highs.

The release of the Australian employment report, though, sent the AUD to a new high, rocketing nearly a big figure on what was a very, very strong report. There were some concerns in the minutes following of how new seasonal adjustments may have impacted. As I write the AUD has given back around 30 points off its gains, which leaves it sharply higher on the day still.

Oil has drifted a little higher during the session, but hasn't approached the highs of the overnight session. Gold benefited along with the currencies as the USD weakens and while there has been some retracement in all, they are all still up a little net as I write.