Forex news for Asia trading for Monday 15 March 2021
- UST yields climbing back
- China comments on the Jan-Feb activity data - economic recovery not yet solid
- China YTD Industrial Production +35.1% y/y (expected +30%), Retail sales +33.8% y/y (expected +32%)
- China home price data for February, New home prices +0.5% m/m (prior +0.3%) and +4.3% y/y (+3.9%)
- People's Bank of China injects 100bn yuan in MLF operation
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.5010 (vs. Friday at 6.4845)
- More from Goldman Sachs GDP forecasts for this year (big GDP, low inflation)
- AUD/USD range ahead to April, forecast
- China's President Xi has a 5 year timeline to annex Taiwan
- Bitcoin hitting a few bids now on the India potential ban story, under US$59.5K
- Japan data - Core machine orders -4.5% m/m (expected -5.5%) and +1.5% y/y (expected -0.3%)
- India will propose a law banning cryptocurrencies (a senior government official)
- RBA Gov. Lowe repeats it will take to some before reaching inflation, jobs goals
- Consensus expectations are for the NZD to remain high
- AUD traders - heads up for RBA Governor Lowe about to speak
- More on AstraZeneca's statement "on the safety of COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca"
- US President Biden to speak Monday US time (in his rescue plan for the US)
- The Netherlands now suspends use of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine
- US Globex markets open (ICYMI, daylight saving began in the US over the weekend)
- NZ data - Performance Services Index (services PMI) for February: 49.1 (prior 47.9)
- China industrial production data due today, Monday 15 March 2021
- The US and Canada went onto daylight savings over the weekend - clocks forward 1 hour
- Weekend news - more on the BOJ considering eliminating its ETF buy target
- Trade ideas thread - Monday 15 March 2021
- ECB's Kazaks says faster pace of bond buying is a temporary strategy
- Tokyo COVID-19 hospitalisations, govmt considering ending state of emergency as planned on March 21
- AstraZeneca says there is no evidence its coronavirus vaccine increases the risk of blood clots
- Monday morning open levels - indicative forex prices - 15 March 2021
- Is there a better trade than buying bitcoin late on a Friday?
- Video: The crouching tiger trade
US yield once again played a big role in setting moves for forex here during the session. Yields dipped a little in the Asian morning but soon recovered to be little changed as I update and this was reflected in the USD, which fell against major FX early but has retraced since (NZD/USD is an exception, it is still an out-performer for the session - there was no immediately obvious catalyst for this on the session but I'm sure someone will come up with a narrative to explain it ... ADDED, here we go, Tilt Renewables is a windfarm operator, a group of Australian companies is said to be buying it for NZD3bn ).
On the news front there was a number of countries added to the list of those suspending vaccinations with the AstraZeneca product over blood clot concerns. The firm issued a statement saying the product is safe. There is more to come on this in the days ahead.
The data agenda was dominated by China's January-February (2 months combined) 'activity data' (retail sales, industrial production and more) which showed huge gains from the same months last year (which is when China plummeted into COVID-19 lockdowns and disruptions) but more mixed results when compared with the most recent data from December of 2020 (see bullets above).
News crossed India is proposing to ban cryptocurrency mining, trading and holding. BTC had had a good weekend, trading into the high US$62Ks and pulling back a little but this news say BTC?USD dip (just a little) under $59K before stabilising.
