Forex news for Asia trading Friday 26 June 2015

  • The loudest voice in the Chinese stock market ... Xinhua News Agency
  • Morgan Stanley on China stockmarket ... "this is probably not a dip to buy"
  • Europe, please set Greece free. If it comes back, its yours. If it doesn't, it never was.
  • HSBC dumps China PMI
  • Australia press: HSBC sees RBA on hold for the rest of the year
  • Merkel says Saturday Eurogroup will be decisive for Greece
  • Japan finance minister Aso: Risk of loss of trust in JGBs if don't meet FY 2020 target
  • Japan Overall Household Spending, Jobless rate, applicant ratio data results
  • Japan May headline CPI: 0.5% y/y (vs. 0.4% expected)
  • MAS' Ong: Singapore may need to review exchange rate oversight rules
  • New Zealand May trade balance: +350m (vs. expected -100m)
  • RBNZ says the NZD persists at an unjustifiable level
  • Japan - BOJ wants to 'adjust' the way CPI is measured, will give it a boost
  • European parliament head Schulz: Doesn't expect Greece to leave euro
  • China to limit FX intervention to disorderly market conditions

Have a little Friday giggle:

  • New BOJ Governor named - meet Haruhiko Kardashian

More ructions in Chinese stocks today, with ChiNext down move than 8% on the session (as of writing).

Not quite so much excitement for the currencies, but we had some movement nonetheless.

It was Japanese CPI day (May data for National CPI, and June for the Tokyo CPI) and while we are nowhere near the BOJ's target, at leaset we weren;t back in deflation today. Full details at the link above. The 'Overall Household Spending' (again, see bullets above) result, though, was much better, with the first y/y gain for more than a year. As is often the case with Japanese data, the impact on the yen was subdued. It was only a little later that yen crosses started to slip, USD/JPY giving away 30+ points to head towards 123.20 and EUR/JPY down to lows around 137.80.

EUR/USD dipped a wee bit on the session also, back under 1.1200 and down about 25 or so points since late US time. Comments from germany's Merkel weighed on it. USDCHF barely did anything, and cable was little changed overall too, but it had a 15 or so point range and ends (as of writing) ever so slightly higher.

Bring on the down-under currencies! NZD/USD got the ball rolling with a sharp drop on Reserve Bank of New Zealand comments, back under 0.6900 for nearly 50 points to the downside. It then bounced from just under 0.6870, not making it back to the figure and grinding sideways for the past few hours around 0.6890.

AUD/USD followed lower a few hours later, from early highs around 0.7740 to a low of 0.7710 or so before a bounce back above 0.7725 briefly, some sideways around there and is back near its lows as I update. There was little in the news today to drive it, a flow-driven day.