Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 30 April 2015
Japan - BOJ day!
As of posting the wrap we haven;t had the BOJ announcement. It's a one-day meeting, so the announcement can come quite a bit later than the normal 0230-0330GMT expected time window. Or, maybe they got a lot to talk about?
- Japan chief cabinet secretary Suga: Expects BOJ to make appropriate policy decisions
- Japan March preliminary industrial production: -0.3% m/m (vs. -2.3% expected)
New Zealand - RBNZ day!
- New Zealand March money supply M3: +8.3% y/y (prior was +6.6%)
- Reuters poll: 11 of 15 economists see RBNZ on hold until Q2 of 2016 or later
- BNZ on RBNZ: "We stick, for now, with our call that rates will not decline "
UBS changes its RBNZ forecasts - Says will keep OCR unchanged 'til mid-2016
New Zealand March Building Permits
New Zealand - ASB put the odds on an RBNZ rate cut this year at 50%
Analyst responses to the RBNZ unchanged decision
Forex technical analysis: NZDUSD moves lower on RBNZ statement
RBNZ: On hold at 3.5%
Forex technical analysis: NZDUSD ceiling above, 200 and 100 hour MA below
Fonterra cuts milk price payout forecast
- Preview of the RBNZ policy decision due Thursday morning (NZ time)
More
Australia - Private Sector Credit March: +0.5% m/m (expected +0.5%)
Australia - $A5bn boost to infrastructure spending
- Think stock market gains only driven by central banks? Think again, says Citi.
- El-Erian: Fed rate-increase cycle will be the loosest tightening in its modern history
- Fitch: Australian Investor Sentiment falls on Softer Domestic Economy and Eurozone
- UK data - GfK Consumer Confidence for April: 4 (vs. expected 4)
- Press: Australia running out of time to save AAA - Goldman Sachs
The NZD was the big mover in Asia today, dropping rapidly on the RBNZ announcement (see bullets, above). It ticked a little lower in the hour or so following but recovered from its lows just under 0.7595 to bounce 35-odd points before drifiting a few points lower and finishing the session, as I update, just under 0.7620.
AUD/USD fell along with the Kiwi, but not to the same extent. It bounced from 0.7980 to gain 40 or so points but soon revisited its lows. Iron ore price weakness today weight on it and I leave it under 0.8000 again.
EUR, GBP, CHF were all bound in a quiet range, each are near their lows vs. the USD as I write. There was little in the way of fresh news to impact the European currencies in Asia today.
USD/JPY fell away from highs around 119.15 in very early Tokyo, losing points down to 118.76. As I write ahead of the BOJ announcement (still not hit yet) USD/JPY has bounced back to just below 119.00.
Oil was relatively flat, maybe up a few cents if anything. Gold down a few cents but not much in that either.
-
Still to come from the BOJ later today:
- The updated medium-term GDP and CPI forecasts (i.e. the semi-annual Outlook Report), due at 0600 GMT.
- BOJ Governor Kuroda's press conference follows then at 0630 GMT
