Forex news for Asia trading Friday 5 February 2016
NFP
- Nonfarm payrolls preview from BoA / Merrill Lynch (TL;DR is they're at +170K)
- Here's something different - LIVE webinar over the NFP- don't miss this!
- Goldman Sachs NFP preview, they are well below median consensus
China:
- China Forex reserves data due Sunday - preview
- BOCOM's Lian says PBOC may cut RRR after Chinese New Year holiday
- Chinese New Year market holidays next week - your guide to who is open and when
- People's Bank of China (PBOC) sets yuan reference rate at 6.5314
- PBOC open market operations: Injects 150 bn yuan today
Australia, New Zealand:
- How Kuroda fooled BOJ members on negative rates
- RBA SOMP: "Not consistent with a Bank ... near cutting rates. However, risks remain"
- ANZ lowers its Fonterra payout to under $4
- Australia - RBA Statement on Monetary Policy: AUD has been adjusting to lower commodity prices
- Australia data - December retail sales 0.0% m/m (0.4% expected)
- Westpac have pushed back their RBNZ rate cut forecast to June (from March)
- Australian data - 'Construction' PMI for January: 46.3 (prior 46.8)
Fed's Mester:
- Comments from Japan fin min Aso and Fed's Mester
- FED: Here's what to watch (and when) to see Mester's "4 2016 hikes" hopes crushed
- More from Fed's Mester: Hasn't changed her 4 rate hikes this year outlook!
- Fed's Mester: Recent mkt moves don't change US outlook - but there are risks
- How Kuroda fooled BOJ members on negative rates
- Soc Gen economist does not see a BoE rate increase in this growth cycle
- Trade ideas thread for Friday 5 February 2016
Asia quickly slipped into 'pre-NFP' mode today with sideways the order of the day for much of FX. Thats not to say there wasn't some decent activity, USD/JPY, for example, ticked itself towards 117 again but came under selling pressure ahead of there and has drifted back down 40 or so points. Cable is near session lows as I update, USD/CHF near session highs.
EUR/USD is a tad weaker, it too near session lows, while EUR/JPY is off around 40-oddd points from its session high.
AUD and NZD were more active, with AUD/NZD buying seeing the NZD/USD drop from its highs. The AUD/USD then dropped after traders asked themselves why AUD/USD hadn't gone up despite the AUD/NZD buying ...
But, I jump ahead of myself.
Earlier in Australia we had retail sales data (for December) come in at a bad miss, and the RBA quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy. Details for both in the bullets above. We also saw cuts made to dairy payout forecasts from some the NZ banks (ditto re bullets above).
The USD/CNY daily central rate setting was again another big drop, following the weaker USD again overnight. We also saw another large injection of funds from the PBOC ahead of the holidays next week. Demand for cash ahead of and during the holidays is huge, but as I've been stressing for weeks, there is more to it than that, authorities in China have been telling us for a while now that the big OMO injections (along with injections through other facilities) are intended to take the place of of RRR/rate cuts. We'll see.
Regional equities:
- Nikkei -2.14%
- Shanghai -0.11%
- HK +0.57%
- ASX -0.52%
Still to come: The big focus is on the NFP from the US (1330GMT)
- Don't miss this
- And don't miss this either
And ...
- China Forex reserves data due Sunday - preview
- Chinese New Year market holidays next week - your guide to who is open and when
