- Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda says massive bond buying may hurt market functioning
- UBS forecasts plunging US inflation (core at 2.6% by year end!) - tip 50bp hikes ahead
- Shanghai authorities aiming for Zero-Covid at community level by mid-May
- Japan finance minister Suzuki still going - weak yen good for exporters, not importers
- WTI, Brent oil both rising in price, CAD too
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY mid-point today at 6.7898 (vs. estimate at 6.7955)
- Japan finance minister Suzuki says will continue to watch FX, price moves carefully
- China COVID-19: Beijing has mandated three days of residents staying at home for testing
- Japanese Finance Minister Suzuki comments on BOJ bankrolling public debt
- European Central Bank speakers coming up on Friday - Centeno, Nagel, Schnabel, De Cos
- Morgan Stanley see a downturn for the US dollar, in 2023
- ICYMI - Toyota to halt 12 plants in Japan, & will cut North American production further
- New Zealand April manufacturing PMI 51.2 (prior 53.8)
- Expectations of more aggressive RBNZ rate hikes have been trimmed back
- More FX intervention in Hong Kong
- ICYMI - OPEC cuts forecast for world oil demand growth in 2022 for a second straight month
- Trade ideas thread - Friday 13 May 2022
- More from Powell - firmly committed to getting inflation back down to 2%
- Fed Chair Powell says factors outside the Fed's control may mean a hard landing
- Forexlive Americas FX news wrap: Euro sinks to five-year low, yen bid
- Nasdaq erases declines. Closes marginally higher. Dow and S&P close lower
Lets get EUR/USD out of the way, it was dead during Asia trade, barely moving.
USD/JPY found a few bids, taken as high as across 129 again to just over 129.25. Its since subsided back under the figure. We had comments from Japan’s finance minister today, wary of rapid yen weakness (he’s been saying this a lot, as the yen had slid and now is keeping the jawboning up despite USD/JPY tracking more or less sideways (albeit in a large range) the past few weeks). Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda made similar comments on yen weakness later (rapid moves undesirable etc. - familiar sort of comments).
CAD, AUD, NZD all traded a little stronger against the USD. GBP also. CAD was assisted by further gains for oil prices during the session.
O nshore yuan (CNY) weakened further on the day after the People’s Bank of China took the axe to it at the reference rate setting:
- the Bank slashed 600+ points from the CNY against the USD (i.e. USD/CNY more than 600 points higher from yesterday’s mid-rate)
- USD/CNY traded to its highest since September 2020 after the setting
Equities in China like the weaker yuan, trading higher. US equity index futures gained on the session also. They’d bounced well into closing trade during the US session on Thursday.
BTC/USD stabilised somewhat. Its back above US$30K as I update.
Onshore yuan above 6.8 at one stage ... USD/CNY 5 minute candles:
