Forex news for Asia trading Friday 6 May 2016
- Japan media reporting LDP vice pres. sees possibility of sales-tax hike delay
- More on Goldman Sachs hiking their iron ore price forecasts
- PBOC likely to lean into a “weakening yuan bias”
- Japan - April Nikkei PMIs: Services 49.3 (prior 50.0) & Composite 48.9 (prior 49.9)
- Aussie press: RBA ready to cut again
- RBA Statement: Policy easing based on lower inflation outlook, cooling in housing
- PBOC sets yuan reference rate for today at 6.5202 (vs. yesterday at 6.5128)
- Goldman Sachs raise their iron ore price forecasts
- More comments from the Fed heads crossing
- Fed's Kaplan is like the Energizer Bunny! MOAR comments!
- Australia - Construction PMI for April 50.8 (prior 45.2)
- RBNZ bans MediaWorks from press conferences
- AUD and NZD orderboards
- The real story of the RBA rate cut (via WikiLeaks)
- Trump: "Let’s be honest, I’m a low-interest-rate person" (but he'll turf Yellen out)
- Goldman Sachs NFP hot tip .... 240K jobs gain
- Here it is - the TGIF trade ideas thread, Friday 6 May 2016
The Reserve Bank of Australia released their latest quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy (SoMP) today. In these statements they often tinker with their forecasts, a nudge here, a tickle there. Not today.
Today they slashed their near-term inflation forecast; from previously expecting core inflation at 2 to 3% at the end of 2016 to 1 to 2% now. There is more in the bullets, above.
- RBC has brought forward their call for an RBA cut from August to June
- Macquarie have responded quickly, they were calling for a further RBA rate cut in November of this year but have brought that call forward to August.
- BNP are calling for a June cut (from August prior)
On the release of the RBA's Statement the AUD/USD was marked lower immediately, dropping 40-odd points from around 0.7460 just prior to the release. It fell further from there.
Hourly AUD/USD chart as I update
NZD/USD followed along (not to the same extent), trading under 0.6870 but holding around 0.6850 as of writing.
Elsewhere it was a bit of a pre-NFP snoozer. USD/JPY had a little movement, ticking a few points higher as Tokyo got underway after a 3-day holiday, but it soon rejected 107.40, trading lower to be around 107.10 as I write.
EUR, CHF and GBP are all little changed.
Gold has edged higher, very small, while oil is down a few cents on the session.
Regional equities:
- Nikkei -0.83%
- Shanghai -1.85%
- HK -1.3%
- ASX -0.48%
Still to come:
- Nonfarm payroll will be the central focus (get your entry in!)
More:
- Turkey Leadership Crisis: An Investors' Guide to What's at Stake
