The lead in to the Asia session:

Forexlive Americas FX news wrap: Commodities soar. Stocks get hammered

Oil (and other commodity prices) were once again a focus during the session. Oil moved higher, not exceeding Monday’s high though) before dropping back. Where it found bids again to drive it even higher. Its barely off its session highs as I post. A short squeeze in nickel provided bids for the metal, it rose again. News crossed of a EU plan to cut imports of Russian gas in the next 12 months (see bullets above).

Local equities took their lead from the lower price action on Wall Street Monday. China, HK, Japan all lower.

And so to FX, where major rates had some movement but within not large ranges.

Data flow was light. Japan’s wage data showed the first rise for ‘real’ (after inflation) wages in 5 months, which is welcome. Its not going to budge the Bank of Japan though.

National Australia Bank brought forward their forecast for an RBA rate hike, seeing a 0.15% cash rate hike in August and two more hikes by the end of 2022.

News flow, too, was light. There was little out of Eastern Europe to indicate any diminution in fighting.

Oil

(This chart is from our charting app, which is free and can be found at this link):

oil chart 08 March 2022