Forex news for Asia trading Monday 18 December 2017
- NZ Q4 GDP due this week - preview
- The Pessimist's Guide to 2018
- Barclays' trade of the week: Long USD against GBP, JPY, NOK basket
- Here is a Bitcoin 'endgame' price forecast: $400,000 (yes, 400K USD)
- Japan Nov. trade balance (surprise surplus) - recaps
- China house prices (Nov.) - all China new home prices +5.1% y/y
- PBOC sets USD/CNY mid-point today at 6.6162 (vs. Friday at 6.6113)
- Australia MYEFO: Deficit seen at 23.6bn AUD (vs. May was seen at 29.4bn)
- Nearby option expiries for Monday 18 December 2017 (oh, for forex, of course)
- Singapore data - export growth slower in November
- New Zealand - ANZ consumer confidence for December: -1.5% m/m (prior -2.1%)
- BOJ Tankan survey for Q4 - price expectations out now
- Japan Nov. Trade balance: Y 113.4bn (vs. expected Y -40bn)
- China press: PBOC does not need to follow Fed in raising interest rates
- It's a new week, it must be time for a new bitcoin price surge
- Japan press: Japanese pension fund shouldering costs of BOJ's negative rate
- New Zealand data this week - Q4 GDP - preview
- Westpac on the NZD - look for a fall to 0.67
- Trade ideas thread - Monday 18 December 2017
- New Zealand data - November services PMI 56.4 (prior 55.7, revised from 55.6)
- Australian mid-year budget update due today - the headline to watch
- UK - PM May writes in the weekend press she is getting on with the job of Brexit
- Economic calendar due from Asia today
- FX early indications as the week kicks off
Weekend
- Poloz is tired of forward guidance, wants markets to be uncertain
- Senate Republican Cornyn: "I am confident will pass this bill, probably on Tuesday."
- New Austria government: You can have referendums, but not on EU membership
- CSX CEO Hunter Harrison dies
There was some very early action in USD/JPY and yen crosses - with USD/JPY dropping to circa 112.50. As I say each every week in my 'opening indications' post, prices can swing around on not very much in the very early Asia Monday morning due to extreme lack of liquidity. Another manifestation of the thin trading conditions is different brokers may report sharply different ranges during this time ... I believe today may well have been an example of this.
The 'not very much' today seemed to be reports of a potential cabinet reshuffle. If you're a noob, welcome to forex.
USD/JPY traded higher once Tokyo became active, bids into the Tokyo fix. Sellers (chatter macro related fund interest) then came in to push it back toward earlier levels.
GBP, EUR, AUD, NZD and CAD are all a few points higher against the USD during the session. The moves have been small only.
We had the MYEFO from Australia today, notably wage growth is forecast at 2.25% for this year (2017/18), lower than the 2.5% in the May budget. Which still seems a wee bit optimistic.
