Forex news for Asia trading for Wednesday 16 December 2020
- Schumer on coronavirus relief package - making progress, hopefully agreement soon
- Rising hopes for a US stimulus deal is sending the US dollar lower in Asia
- Some rumours a bloc in US Congress will vote against stimulus unless it includes checks
- McConnell says significant progress on COVID-19 relief being made
- US McCarthy says COVID-19 relief negotiations moving in the right direction
- California orders thousands of extra body bags, record coronavirus cases has left LA with less than 100 ICU beds
- US FDA authorizes antigen test as first OTC fully at-home COVID-19 diagnostic test
- Trump Cabinet meeting scheduled for Wednesday (1630GMT)
- Coronavirus - South Korea flags potential level 3 social distancing restrictions
- China's state planner says 28 investment projects approved in November
- NZD traders - ASB has raised their Fonterra dairy price forecast to NZD 7/kgms
- Japan economy minister Nishimura says protecting jobs, economy with fiscal spending
- China's annual economic work conference likely to meet this week
- Australia Trade Minister Birmingham says referring China to WTO over tariffs
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.5355 (vs. yesterday at 6.5434)
- FX option expiries for Wednesday December 16 at the 10am NY cut
- Japan flash PMIs Dec: Manufacturing 49.7 (prior 49.0), Servcies 47.2 (prior 47.8)
- French firm Valneva will start clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate in the UK
- BOJ to buy USD 6bn from Japan's MoF
- NZ Treasury boosts its GDP growth forecast for 2020/21 by 2%
- Japan trade balance for November Y 366.8bn (expected Y 522.5bn)
- Australian data - Westpac leading index for November +0.46% m/m (prior revised up)
- Recapping some of the overnight oil headlines
- More on Irish PM Martin hoping for a Brexit deal by the weekend
- Brexit - The UK is planning to rival Singapore as a hub for shipping
- Irish PM Martin says hopefully will have clarity on Brexit trade deal by the weekend
- Australia preliminary December PMIs: Manufacturing 56.0 (prior 55.8), Services 57.4 (prior 55.1)
- Trade ideas thread - Wednesday 16 December 2020
- NZ data, Q3 Current Account to GDP YTD -0.8% (as expected)
- MSCI to delist 10 China companies from some of its indexes
- Private oil survey data shows an unexpected build in crude oil inventory
- BOC Gov. Macklem says Q4 Canada GDP will be greater than 1%
The short story of the session here was one spent awaiting new on US stimulus talks between both sides of the aisle. A 4pm (Washington time) meeting ended with only vague expressions of hope for an agreement but a later meeting (begun at 7.30pm Washington time) produced a more sustained flow of encouraging comments from both sides during breaks in talks. As I post the latest is McConnell, McCarthy (on the Republican side) and Schumer (Democrat) are all saying they believe an agreement is reachable, that talks are making good progress. Let's see how that goes (more headlines in the bullets above).
FX has responded by sending the US dollar a little lower almost across the board, with small gains for EUR, AUD, NZD. USD/CAD had bounced from yearly lows hit during Tuesday but has retraced just a little. USD/JPY is lower on the session here.
We also had a trickle of Brexit related headlines during the UK evening, but nothing of much substance and GBP has had a subdued range session here.
New Zealand saw the release of the half-yearly update from Treasury, with GDP forecasts boosted and that for the peak unemployment rate lowered. Good news for NZ if those pan out.
Australia has referred its dispute with China on barley to the WTO. Japanese trade data today was disappointing.
