Forex news for Asia-Pacific trading on October 7, 2020:
- RBNZ official says 'actively working' on negative interest rate and funding-for-lending programme
- BOJ's Kuroda: Japan economy remains in a severe situation but starting to pick up
- New Zealand ANZ Oct prelim business confidence -14.5 vs -28.5 prior
- White House security office, Crede Bailey, is gravely ill with coronavirus - report
- Japan August current account surplus ¥2102B vs ¥2031B exp
- RICS UK Sept house price balance 61% vs 40% expected
- Meadows there is a 'broad base of support' for limited virus aid deal
- Evans: Fed has capacity to do more asset purchases but currently doesn't see need
- Trump says vaccine will available be right after the election
- Brazil surpasses 5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases
- US coronavirus cases rose by 51,354 on Wednesday
Markets:
- Gold down $3 to $1884
- Nikkei 225 up 1.2% to erase year-to-date loss
- GBP leads, NZD lags
Price action was mostly subdued in Asia-Pacific FX but came to life on headlines from the RBNZ that confirm more easing is coming and that negative rates are in play. NZD/USD quickly dropped to 0.6550 from 0.6580 but most of the move was later recouped, in part due to upbeat sentiment.
Global equities continued to rise with Japan taking the lead today. The Nikkei opened modestly higher but gains accelerated as it approached the September high.
USD/JPY jumped around the time of the Japanese trade data but that was unlikely to have been the driver. The quick pop to 106.00 from the figure was slowly erased and the pair is flat.
Sterling is slightly higher to start the trading day on Brexit optimism even after the EU launched some new threats to walk away. Few people believe it's anything other than posturing as all signs point to slow progress with fisheries as the main hangup.
