Forex news for Asia trading Tuesday 14 March 2017
- China funding 'cliff' coming? 1.5tln yuan of Negotiable CDs mature this month
- BAML says USD rally not over, but if EUR dips on Le Pen, buy it
- Central banker activity coming up in Europe today (including Draghi)
- China data (Industrial production, Retail Sales, Investment) - responses
- China Jan-Feb combined Industrial production 6.3% y/y (expected +6.2%) + retail & more
- Heads up for China data due at the top of the hour
- Sth Korean fin min says will intervene if necessary
- PBOC sets USD/CNY central rate at 6.9118 (vs. yesterday at 6.8988)
- Australian state to build new gas power plant
- Australia data - Feb. NAB Business Conditions: 9 (prior 16) & Confidence 7 (prior 10)
- USD/JPY & EUR/JPY orders
- EUR/USD orderboard
- AUD and NZD orderboards
- Nomura on EUR/USD: Near-term downside risks before rallying to 1.15 by year-end
- Chinese Premier Xi to meet the US President at the Mar-a-Lago in April
- Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays the FOMC
- Australia data - ANZ Weekly consumer confidence falls again this week
- UK Brexit minister Davis says will trigger Article 50 by the end of this month as planned
- UK PM May preparing to reject Sturgeon demand for independence referendum
- ICYMI: UK parliament officially gives permission to begin Brexit
- RBA's Bullock: Key focus is the strength of household balance sheets
- US Trade Representative nominee says should have America first policy
- Trade ideas thread - Tuesday 14 March 2017
- RBA's Bullock - remarks on house price measures
- UK parliament - upper house backs down on their Brexit amendment
- ICYMI: Forexlive Americas forex news wrap: Quiet start to the week as traders await the storm
- Economic data due from Asia today - China data the focus
News from the UK during the evening there that the legislation to enable PM May to trigger Article 50 has passed parliament. In other developments, it appears likely the PM will reject the call from Scotland's Nicola Sturgeon for another independence referendum, at least at the time suggested by Sturgeon (more in both in the bullets above).
Otherwise news flow was fairly light.
On the data front though we got two closely watched releases, Australian business survey data and then the data dump from China including industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment.
First up was the Aussie data:
- Australia data - Feb. NAB Business Conditions: 9 (prior 16) & Confidence 7 (prior 10)
As you can see, neither of those is much good compared to the priors, but on the other hand they are both still at decent levels. There is more at the link, and something for both bulls and bears in there but on balance the release was judged as not bad.
The Australian dollar lost a few points on the data, from around 0.7565 to tickling 0.7550; its since come back to around 0.7560, Prompted to an extent by the decent China data ... which brings me to:
- China Jan-Feb combined Industrial production 6.3% y/y (expected +6.2%) + retail & more
- Industrial production was a beat
- Retail sales a miss
- Fixed asset investment a beat
- Check out the bullet for more detail, and also China data (Industrial production, Retail Sales, Investment) - responses
Overall, signs of stabilisation in China's economy continue ... the usual caveats apply of course.
Currencies were fairly stable. USD/JPY ticked a little higher early, turning back down ahead of 115 and losing 20 or so points. EUR, CHF and GBP are all little changed, as is the NZD.
The FOMC announcement is Wednesday (US time) ... it could be a long wait.
Regional equities:
- Nikkei -0.10%
- Shanghai +0.11%
- HK +0.05%
- ASX -0.13%
Still to come:
- Central banker activity coming up in Europe today (including Draghi)
