Forex and Bitcoin news for Asia trading Friday 27 April 2018
- BOJ April 2018 meeting - BOJ announce no change to monetary policy
- U.S. toughens auto demands as NAFTA talks continue
- China March Industrial Profits +3.1% y/y (prior +10.8% y/y)
- Australia Q1 2018 PPI: +0.5% q/q (prior 0.6% q/q) and +1.7% y/y (prior 1.7% y/y)
- People’s Bank of China sets yuan reference rate at 6.3393 (vs. yesterday at 6.3283)
- Japan Industrial Production (March, preliminary): +1.2% m/m (expected 0.5%)
- Japan - Retail Sales for March: -0.7% m/m (expected 0.0%)
- Japan - Tokyo inflation for April. Headline CPI: 0.5% y/y (expected 0.8%)
- Japan jobs data for March: Unemployment rate 2.5% (expected 2.5%)
- UK data - GfK Consumer Confidence for April: -9 (expected -7)
- New Zealand Trade Balance (March): -86m (expected surplus NZD275m)
- EUR/USD technical analysis - update on the "recent erosion of its 2017-2018 uptrend "
- NZ data not moving the NZD: April consumer confidence down 5.9% m/m
- Canada's Freeland on NAFTA talks - we have moved to specifics on autos
The Bank of Japan meeting was the focus today despite expectations of no change in policy. Eyes were on any changes to communication tho9ugh.
We got no change in policy, the bank maintained:
- short-term interest rate target at -0.1 pct
10-year JGB yield target around zero pct
But the news of note was that the Bank abandoned the phrase committing to a time frame on hitting their 2% inflation target.
The Statement and Outlook report were otherwise filled with downbeat projections, phrases such as 'downside risks' popping up more than once. I suppose it was always possible for the BOJ to get more dovish, and they did so today. It makes talk of an exit from easy policy seem, at best, poorly timed. There is no exit in sight.
And so the currency market response. Is it fair to say no-one noticed? Maybe no-one cares, cause the yen has barely moved since the announcement. The range for USD/JPY on the session has been small. It found a top just above 109.40 overnight and hasn't bothered having another look toward there today, on balance its about 20 points lower or so with little action.
Other currencies .... not too much to report either. All are little change against the USD during the session so far here today.
Something you might want to take note of is the most recent reports out of NAFTA - Canadian press says:
USD/CAD had edged a little lower since that report, but not much at all.
Still to come:
- UK Q1 2017 GDP preview - advance estimate can be subject to sizeable revisions
- US Q1 Advance GDP preview - Expect a slowdown from the final quarter of 2017
Next week:
