Forex news for Asia trading Monday 30 March 2020
- US Defense Dept orders all installations to stop announcing publicly new coronavirus cases
- Goldman Sachs on the 3 things needed to be confident the stock market has bottomed
- Coronavirus - Japan's foreign minister has issued advice against travel to 73 countries, regions
- ICYMI: A coronavirus vaccine will begin testing in Sept, could be available early 2021
- Japan's economy minister Nishimura says preparing big economy package
- World Bank base China GDP forecast for 2020 is 2.3%
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 7.0851
- FX option expiries for Tuesday March 31 at the 10am NY cut
- China official PMIs for March: Manufacturing 52.0 (expected 44.8) Services 52.3 (42.0)
- PBOC adviser says setting a GDP target may force a 'flood-like' stimulus
- Australia Private Sector Credit for February +0.4% m/m (expected 0.3%)
- South Korea's overall industrial output contracted the most in 9 years in February
- NZ Business Confidence (March) : -63.5 (prior -19.4)
- Japan Industrial Production for February (preliminary): +0.4% m/m (expected 0.0%)
- Japan Retail sales for February: +0.6% m/m (expected -1.7%)
- Japan Unemployment rate for February: 2.4% (expected 2.4%)
- UK - Lloyds business barometer for March: 6 (prior 23)
- UK - GfK Consumer Confidence for March: -9 (expected -15)
- Morgan Stanley on US COVID-19 spread - accelerating mortality increasing exponentially
- Australian weekly consumer confidence craters even further - lowest ever
- China, North Korea, Russia, Iran are all 'hard targets' to get accurate coronavirus information from
- NZ Health Minister says some coronavirus restrictions are going to be in place for a long time
- Coronavirus - US President Trump says nationwide stay-at-home order is 'pretty unlikely'
- Here are how major currencies and equity markets performed in Q1
- New Zealand building permits for February: +4.7% m/m (prior -2.0%)
- US' Lighthizer says overdependence on other countries for cheap medical supplies
- Another G20 meeting coming today - finance ministers and central bankers
- Trade ideas thread - Tuesday 31 March 2020
End of quarter buying and the final Tokyo fix for the Japanese fiscal year combined to see a higher USD here in the Asian time zone today.
Results varied by currency, with a strong and, as I post, sustained gain for USD/JPY (Japanese corporate buying of USD/JPY was substantial).
AUD, NZD and GBP were all hit sharply lower (EUR also, but not quite as much) before recovering their losses (GBP lagging on this, see chart below) in quick time and consolidating, as I update, around prior levels.
Before the mini 'flash crash' moves we had comments out of China referring to 'flood like' stimulus (see bullets above) which had given China-proxy trades (such as the AUD) a boost. Also from China today were the official PMIs, and they were stunning. Both manufacturing and services PMIs leapt higher from the previous disastrous readings, both back into expansion (see bullets above). The data was met with disbelief from many quarters, but it should be noted that China's statistics people were quick to point out that a PMI reading is not indicative of a return to normal in China's economy and more evidence is needed ahead.
Data from Japan (retail sales, industrial production) came in better than expected, but issuing authorities were quick to say that the data ahead will worsen as the impact of the coronavirus outbreak further impacts the economy.
There were collapses for the March NZ business survey and Australian weekly consumer confidence data for the week.
Regional equities as I post
- Nikkei: +1.65%
- Hang Seng: +1.14%
- Shanghai: %+0.42
- ASX: +0.13%
