Forex news for Asia trading Friday 3 March 2017
- Heads up for Federal Reserve Chair Yellen speaking Friday, US time
- China February service sector growth slows to four-month low: Caixin PMI
- The FT likes Japan inflation data: "Good news for Abe and BoJ"
- USD/JPY & EUR/JPY orders
- EUR/USD orderboard
- Fed's Williams speaking now .... at a private event. No headlines crossing.
- China - Caixin February PMIs: Services 52.6 (prior 53.1) & composite 52.6 (52.2)
- Citi like AUD/NZD, but wary of the risks
- China - Here's a fund manager bullish on the yuan
- PBOC sets USD/CNY central rate at 6.8896 (vs. yesterday at 6.8809)
- Fed's Mester: Fed is hitting both US employment and inflation goals
- Reuters: US VP Pence's private email used for state business was hacked
- Japan Nikkei PMIs for February: Services 51.3 (prior 51.9) and Composite 52.2 (52.3)
- China press - says PBOC to keep policy prudent
- Japan - JGB yields on the slide
- Fed's Mester speaking now ... nothing crossing the wires
- New Zealand: ANZ Commodity prices (February): +2.0% m/m (prior -0.1%)
- OECD's Economic Survey of Australia 2017 out overnight - here's the money shot
- Japan inflation data: Headline National CPI (January) : 0.4% y/y (expected 0.4%)
- (Not FX) Inmates continuing to fuel the fire at Tecumseh State Prison (Nebraska)
- Oil - overnight piece says Saudi the biggest OPEC cutters
- AUD and NZD orderboards
- Australia - Services PMI (February): 49.0 (prior 54.5)
- Greece approaches World Bank for cash
- New Fed paper finds 'considerable uncertainty' on FOMC economic projections
- Trade ideas thread - Friday session 3 March 2017
- New Zealand - Value of all building work for Q4: +1.9% q/q(expected +1.5%)
- Economic data due from Asia today - Japan CPI day
- US AG Sessions says will recuse himself from investigations
- ECB's Lautenschlaeger: Does not expect France to leave EU
- New Zealand: ANZ Job Advertisements (Feb): +0.4% m/m (prior -0.2%)
News and data flow was light. Well, apart from US politics that is. Trump issued a statement in support of Sessions:
- Jeff Sessions is an honest man. He did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional. (more here at Zero Hedge)
Also:
- Reuters: US VP Pence's private email used for state business was hacked
Neither pollie-news seemed to move markets too much at all, but developments will be worth keeping an eye on.
We got inflation data from Japan today ... another way, way below target results (no surprise there). There were a few more positive signs in the data, but inflation still very, very low. Household spending data was out at the same time, still very soft indeed. See bullets above for details.
We also got data from China, the lesser-watched (than manufacturing) services PMI (Caixin/Markit version). It hit a 4-month low (more in the bullets, above)
Currencies had a relatively subdued session again, AUD and NZD notable losers!
USD/JPY slipped from US afternoon highs, but the going was slow. A drop of 30 or so points only.
EUR and CHF similarly showed some legs aganst the USD (maybe just toes), the moves again small; EUR/USD up above 1.0520 and USD/CHF to under 1.0125. Cable has barely shown much net change at all, a minor wiggle sort of day.
AUD and NZD both slid a little further against the USD, AUD under 0.7545 at one stage while the kiwi/USD under 0.7040. Small ranges for both.
USD/CNY rose above 6.9 during trade in China, to its highest since mid-January
Still to come:
- Heads up for Federal Reserve Chair Yellen speaking Friday, US time
More:
- ICYMI: Forexlive Americas forex news wrap: Dollar SNAPS higher again but most stocks not..
