Forex news for Asia trading for Thursday 25 February 2021
- Heads up for two huge political events in China next week - March 4 and 5
- Exxon has removed almost all Canadian oil-sands crude from its books
- Taiwan to open its border to non-residents from March 1
- Poll shows analysts expect another (approx) 6% higher for the S&P500 this year
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.4522 (vs. yesterday at 6.4615)
- FX option expiries for Thursday February 25 at the 10am NY cut
- Australian 3 year bond yield rises despite RBA action
- The Federal Reserve says all its services are back to normal
- Australian capex data for Q4, headline +3.0% q/q (expected +1.0%, prior -3%)
- RBA is back buying 3-year ACGBs today
- New Zealand ANZ business survey for February, final: Business Confidence 7.0 (prior 9.4)
- The RBNZ is smiling, nodding at its newly imposed housing remit but their pushback started yesterday
- UK Chancellor Sunak is laying the groundwork for a kick-ass UK economic boom once lockdown ends
- Moderna has laid out plans to address Covid19 mutants
- Latest Israel vaccination data shows Pfizer vaccine efficacy around 94%
- GME shares skyrocket - GameStop(theCount!)
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 25 February 2021
- Fed Vice Chair Clarida says will not lift rates until we actually get to 2%
The NZD gained in late US afternoon trade with NZD/USD moving briefly above 0.7450. The catalyst was the NZ government requiring the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to include housing prices in its mandate which prompted markets to raise once again the propect of less accommodation from the central bank. As the session progressed in Asia the upmove for the kiwi $ was retraced somewhat.
AUD/USD popped to its highest in three years. The 'reflation' trade is alive and well, helped along early in the session by the news that Moderna is soon to human-test its South African COVID-19 variant vaccine. The brakes were applied to the AUD though as the US 10 year yield edged a little higher in the Asian morning.
On the data front we had Aussie capex for Q4, which was quite a solid result. It showed the biggest (core capex) q/q rise in a decade (admittedly after the awful weakness during the height of the pandemic and preceding it). Maybe business investment can expand further as the economy recovers further ahead.
USD/JPY traded up 25 or so points from its session lows, USD/CHF did little more than flatline (tiny range). There was little to catalyse any movement in EUR while some potentially good news from the UK budget coming up failed to impact much at all on sterling.
