After losing ground on Thursday US time the US dollar retraced a little during Asian morning trade. EUR, AUD, NZD, GBP, CAD, CHF all lost ground. Yen also, but I’ll come back to that.

The Australian and New Zealand dollars took a bit of an (admittedly small) extra hit on news that next week the Biden’s administration is set to unveil a wide-ranging decision on China tariffs targeting key sectors, including electric vehicles, batteries and solar equipment, with new imposts. The targeted nature contrasts with Trump’s blanket approach to tariffs, but one thing is for sure, in this election year moves against China like this are sure to ratchet higher from both.

From Japan today we had data showing weak March household spending. The Bank of Japan have been expecting this in their forecasts, which muted the FX impact. Still, after hitting lows under 155.30 USD/JPY has since bounced back to look at 155.75. An ex-BOJ official says raising rates now further to support the yen would be ill-advised, that services inflation was already weakening.

Earlier jawboning from Finance Minister Suzuki to support JPY was shrugged off.

As a heads up, over the weekend (at 0130 GMT on Saturday, which is 2130 on Friday, US Eastern time) China will be publishing its April inflation data, CPI and PPI. There is more on this in the linked post above.

usdjpy wrap chart 10 May 2024 2