Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 11 June 2015

Australia & New Zealand:

  • ANZ on why there is doubt over the strength of the Australian employment result
  • Australian employment data - stats bureau flags more problems
  • Australia Employment Change for May: +42K (+15K expected)
  • RBNZ Governor Wheeler speaking before parliament committee
  • Australia - Consumer inflation expectations for June: 3% (prior was +3.6%)
  • Responses to the RBNZ rate cut this morning ... more expected
  • New Zealand: Auckland house prices up 20% y/y - REINZ
  • OMG RBNZ! What have you done???
  • RBNZ Governor Wheeler still going
  • RBNZ's Wheeler: Believes NZD has significant way to fall still
  • Forex technical analysis: NZDUSD heads lower after RBNZ cut
  • RBNZ monetary policy announcement: CUTS RATES

Other places :-D

  • China Cabinet to local governments: Spend it or lose it!
  • Japan Quarterly Business Sentiment Index BSI survey for Q2
  • Japan Buying Foreign Bonds last week: -352.2bn (negative means net selling)
  • "'Head and shoulders' is a type of shampoo, not a useful market indicator"
  • UK - RICS House Price Balance for May:+34% (expected 36%)
  • Greek PM Tsipras: Discussions with Merkel, Hollande were in a very good climate
  • Merkel, Hollande, Tsipras agree Greek debt talks with creditors must be intensified
  • Hot or not? S&P rates the USA
  • S&P - Greek govt likely default on commercial debt within next 12 months
  • UK's Osborne: Wants a guarantee from the EU (maybe he should buy a toaster)
  • World Bank cuts 2015 global growth forecast to 2.8% from 3%

The day kicked off with a rate cut from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, taking the OCR to 3.25% from 3.5%. Expectations were around 50/50 for a cut or not but given the pain of a loss outweighs the pleasure of a gain the net result was misery :-D

The NZD/USD was marked down instantly, with stops in the interbank market being filled up to half a big figure from trigger prices. The kiwi is an illiquid little birdie at the best of times, over an RBNZ decision its much, much worse.

The price never showed much sign of recovery and it goes into the early European morning near to the day's lows.

Australian May employment data was the next important event to roll on in, and it didn't disappoint, coming in way above consensus median expectations. AUD/USD rocketed around 90+ points (and, tellingly, the NZD/USD managed around 25-30 only ... before tumbling back again) but quickly gave back not quite half the move as the prior month's numbers were revised to give a worse read for April as well as doubts being raised over the veracity of the data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics yet again. On balance, though, it was a better than expected result.

I didn't note in the posts, but 'hours worked' was flat on the month (after a +0.1% rise in April) ... this equates to a 2% annual rate (which compares with the +0.3% at the end of 2014).

Elsewhere, USD/JPY ground out a gain, edging net higher but not managing to approach its bounce high around 123.30+ it saw in European trade after the "Kuroda's comments" slapping it took yesterday.

EUR, GBP and CHF all slipped a little against the USD.

Oil and gold were both more or less flat on the session

Still to come!

  • Coming up in the US today - Retail Sales data for May - preview