Forex news for Asia trading Tuesday 21 May 2019
- Japan’s exports fell for a fifth consecutive month - trade balance recap
- Here we go - what happens to FX in the worst case trade war scenarios
- The US moves against Huawei … all Australia's fault?
- BOJ's Harada says the ales tax hike may make the economy worse and slow inflation
- Australian data - Construction work done in Q1: -1.9% q/q (vs. expected 0.0%)
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.8992 (vs. yesterday at 6.8990)
- Australia job vacancy data on the slide, -1.6% m/m in April (prior -1.8%)
- NY Times reports "Trump Administration Could Blacklist Chinese Surveillance Technology Firm"
- Thursday’s European elections 'suggests EUR/USD upside will be limited'
- Australia - leading index for April: -0.09% m/m (prior +0.19%)
- Japan - Core machine orders for March beat: +3.8% (expected 0.0%)
- Japan data - April exports a big miss, come in at -2.4% y/y (expected -1.6%)
- More on the RBA from non-bank analysts
- Fed's Bullard says US rates are in a good place right now
- Reuters May 2019 Tankan: Japan manufacturers index +12 (from +8 in April)
- Morgan Stanley on an RBA June rate cut
- NZ retail sales excluding inflation for Q1 2019: +0.7% q/q
- EUR/USD forecast to 1.10 in 3 to 6 months (seems a long time to wait for 150 pts, but wait …. there's more)
- China's ambassador to the US says China ready to continue trade talks
- Japanese official says the way is now clear for US - Japan trade talks at minister level
- SG on two clear downside risks for EUR/USD
- Trade ideas thread - Wednesday 22 May 2019
- AUD levels for the session ahead
- Oil - private survey of inventories shows surprise build
There was little net movement for currencies during the Asian timezone despite some hefty data releases and various US-China trade war news items of pertinence.
To the trade war, since its a focus. China's Ambassador to the US had remarks reported that the country was ready to continue trade talks with the US. The background to this were comments last week from China along the lines that there was no point in continuing talks. All part of the usual fun and games.
A little later the New York Times published a piece, citing sources 'familiar with the matter', saying that the US planned to limit a Chinese surveillance firm's access to American technology, due to the treatment of the Uighur Muslim ethnic minority in China.
Neither of these items had too much impact. There was a little yen cross selling but ranges remained small.
On the data front we got terrible export data out of Japan again, offset by improved import data (indicating perhaps better domestic demand). Machinery orders from Japan released at the same time showed a solid beat, which augurs well for capex down the track (caveat - admittedly a volatile data set).
Australian 'construction work done' data was a good sized miss with disappointing details pretty much all around. The data is for Q1 and while later quarters in the year are expected to improve ... well, let's hope so but the Q1 data is the latest we have to go on. The data today should be a negative input to the Q1 GD result due on June 5. Plenty more 'partial' inputs to this to come.
As I said earlier in this piece, it was a subdued movement day for forex. Ranges have been small and net change from late US levels is small. Even the onshore yuan was set at a level only 2 tics from its previous day's mid rate. Even BTC had a snoozer.
Still to come:
- Coming up in Europe today, due at 0730GMT - ECB President Draghi speaks
- FX option expiries for today at the 10am NY cut
- Federal Reserve - Minutes of the May 1st FOMC meeting will be released on Wednesday
AUD/JPY for the session.
