Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 28 February 2019
- Recap of speech today from BOJ monetary policy board member Suzuki
- Here's the optimistic view on today's China PMIs
- ANZ on Australian capex data: suggests a positive investment outlook
- More on Ray Dalio's lowered concern about a US recession
- Westpac has downgraded its Australian GDP forecast
- (ICYMI) PBOC to boost real-time monitoring of its stock, bond, FX markets to guard against risks
- BOJ board member Suzuki: Important to maintain powerful monetary easing
- China PMIs for February - ugly results
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY central rate at 6.6901 (vs. yesterday at 6.6857)
- China Feb Manufacturing PMI 49.2 (vs. 49.5 expected)
- More Australian data - private sector credit (Jan) crawls higher. +0.2% m/m (exp. +0.3%)
- Bank of Korea leaves base interest rate on hold at 1.75%
- Australian Private capital expenditure (capex) data (Q4 2018): Headline 2.0% (vs. 1% expected)
- UK Lloyds Business Barometer (February): 4 (vs. prior 19)
- UK GfK consumer confidence (February): -13 (expected -15)
- New Zealand (Feb) business confidence -30.9 (prior -24.1) and outlook 10.5 (prior 13.6)
- Japan Industrial production for January, preliminary:-3.7 % m/m (expected -2.5%)
- Japan Retail sales (January): -2.3% m/m (expected -0.8%)
- Nikkei reports Chinese companies are starting to curb hiring in 2019
- RBA analysis shows the AUD fell lower than the Bank's estimate of fair value
- TD on the USD: expensive, vulnerable. Recommend long AUD/USD
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 28 February 2019
- US says will suspend scheduled March 1 tariff increase on Chinese goods 'until further notice'
- New Zealand budget surplus coming in bigger than forecast (7 months in)
Currencies have maintained small ranges here during the Asian timezone today and are net little changed from levels prevalent in late US trade. This is despite plenty of top tier data releases during the day.
In chronological order:
- Japanese industrial production was a big miss, much weaker than estimates. Outlooks ahead are for a bounce, but hey, the future is uncertain, right?
- Australian capex data showed a better headline than expected and a small boost for the much-watched 5th estimate of investment intentions for 2018/19.
- China PMIs were poor, with some nevertheless minor signs in the details of some improvements. They showed headline falls, falls in export orders (lowest since the GFC) and on the other hand a bounce for new orders. Analysts cited this rebound as a result of stimulus measures appearing to boost domestic demand.
Check out the bullets above for more on all of these, and do note also that lunar new year timings can distort January and February China and Japan data.
Capex data impacted on the AUD, sending AUD/USD on a pop above 0.7160. Credit data released at the same time was not as positive, which took some of the steam out. The rate gave back its gains in the minutes following and the saw a drop on the release of the China PMI data toward 0.7130. Since then AUD/USD has come back to be net unchanged on the session, give or take a few tics.
NZD/USD had a small swing on a disappointing ANZ business survey before all this, but it too has clocked up a little net changed rate on the day.
EUR/USD, up a few tics, cable down a touch.USD/JPY slid away from 111 to circa 110.85. USD/CHF as been a small loser also, currently circa 0.9991.
Bank of Japan policy board member Suzuki spoke today, Ahead of CPI data from Japan due Friday (Tokyo area inflation) he said on Japan
- Economy sustaining momentum towards achieving the BOJ's inflation goal
Thus making a negative contribution to central banker credibility.
Still to come:
