Forex news for Asia trading on Tuesday 18 May 2021
- China's NDRC says the country's PPI may increase further in coming months
- More from China - seeking wider sources of iron ore
- China says Australia should stop interfering with bilateral trade
- TD see the market's "wall of worry" surging in coming weeks
- China's state planner approved 12 fixed-asset investment projects in April
- Two factors account for the underperformance of the Australian dollar (AUD)
- Reports now that Ark Funds sell Apple, Yeahka, Guidewire, Ke Holdings, Agora
- Zero Hedge Twitter account is back!
- RBA May meeting minutes - repeats policy to remain very easy for some time
- Taiwan's TAIEX index is up 3%
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY central rate at 6.4357 (vs. yesterday at 6.4307)
- US Treas Sec Yellen wants business to help foot infrastructure bill
- Zero Hedge Twitter account suspended again (update: they're back)
- Argentina is expected to announce a 30 day stop on meat exports
- Federal Reserve FOMC Minutes due Wednesday 19 May 2021 - preview
- US coronavirus study shows Pfizer, Moderna vaccines effective against Indian variant
- Japan Q1 GDP (preliminary) -1.3% q/q (SA) (vs. -1.1% expected)
- Report says the UK risks becoming the new Italy - Brexit, Covid + 3 other seismic changes
- Australia weekly consumer confidence: 112.5 (prior 111.6)
- US Senator says Republican infrastructure proposal is on track to be sent to President Biden on Tuesday
- More from Fed's Kaplan - says he still expects first FOMC rate hike could happen in 2022
- Fed's Kaplan sees GDP 6.4% this year, unemployment rate down to 4%
- More on the prospect of a credit rating downgrade for Australia (currently AAA)
- Trade ideas thread - Tuesday 18 May 2021
- UK government "split" over trade deal terms with Australia - Brexit deal in doubt
- Michael Burry (‘Big Short’ guy) has unveiled a US$530 million bet against Tesla
It was a 'risk on' day for regional equities and for FX against the USD. Markets more or less ignored comments from Federal Reserve Dallas President Kaplan who once again leaned towards an early discussion of Fed tapering. News flow on the whole was light, although we did receive an indication Yellen is to ask business to help foot the infrastructure bill in a speech on Tuesday (US time). Data flow centred on Japanese Q1 GDP which showed contraction, as expected.
On the central bank front we had RBA May meeting minutes today, these did not add much to our understanding of where the Bank is at - they repeated again their expectation that rates would not rise until 2024 at the earliest. Interestingly though Deputy Governor Debelle is on record from his speech a couple of weeks ago indicating the Bank will be having regard to data more so than calendar guidance.
NZD led the charge against the USD, leading the pack higher. GBP and CAD made notable highs on the session, cable to its highest since late February while CAD to its since May of 2015.
USD/JPY was subdued.
Regional equities:
Japan's Nikkei +2.1%
China's Shanghai Composite +0.03%
Hong Kong's Hang Seng +1.2%
Australia's S&P/ASX 200+0.44 %
