Forex news for Asia trading Wednesday 29 April 2015
- China ... QE or not QE?
- ANZ cuts its end-2015 USD/JPY forecast
- Westpac-MNI China April Consumer Sentiment -3.1% m/m
- Goldman Sachs see risk to Australia's AAA rating on negative S&P outlook
- New Zealand - ANZ Business Confidence for April: 30.2 (prior 35.8)
- More on the NZ trade balance - NZ exports to China decline for 7 months in a row
- New Zealand March trade balance: $631m
- It's a big Wednesday (and for the rest of the week) for central banks
- The strongest and weakest currencies for April 28, 2015
- API crude oil inventories +4.2m bbls vs approx +2.8m exp
A pre-FOMC session combined with a holiday in Japan produced a day of watching paint dry in the most of the currencies during the Asian session.
EUR, GBP, CHF, yen ... all in very narrow ranges.
NZD and AUD, though, had a little more activity.
We had a big surplus in the March trade balance out of NZ (more than double the consensus expectation), which was followed by another decline in measured business confidence. The ANZ survey also showed very restrained inflation expectations, which further reinforced expectations that will the RBNZ will remain on hold tomorrow it will shift to an easing bias. The NZD/USD lost around 40 points from session highs.
AUD/USD crabbed along close to its overnight highs in the early going but soon started to lose ground (its down around 40 points from early highs also). the news flow was negative for the AUD today, Chinese consumer sentiment slumped to 5 month lows, Goldman's warned (pretty mildly, it must be said) that S&P could place Australia's Sovereign rating on a "negative outlook" over the coming months, and the possibility of Chinese QE was downplayed by PBOC's chief economist. More details on all of these in the bullets above.
Oil was pretty much sideways, gold drifted a few bucks lower.
Asian equities were wobbly ...
- HK's Hang Seng -0.5%
- The Shanghai Composite -1.2%
- The ASX/S&P 200 is -1.2% in Australia
- & the Kospi -0.9%
Still to come (in this order!):
- Swedish Riksbank meets Wednesday - preview
- Russia central bank decision due at 1.30pm Moscow time (1030GMT)
- Before the FOMC on Wednesday we'll get US Q1 GDP ... what to watch for
- FOMC preview: 4 reasons to buy the US dollar on the Federal Reserve decision
- Preview of the RBNZ policy decision due Thursday morning (NZ time)
