Forex news for Asia trading Wednesday 18 February 2015
- RBS- conceivable ... rating agencies will threaten to downgrade Australia sovereign rating
- EUR/USD: Warning Signals For Bears - Citi
- BOJ announcement - another look ....
- Bank of Japan announcement
- Fund managers more upbeat on Europe
- HSBC says Australian 10-year yield to fall under 2% this year
- Head of Germany's IFO economic research institute says Greece should exit euro
- IMF's Shinohara: Global growth uneven, fragile
- Survey says Swiss National Bank to ease policy further
- Reuters - Greece faces resistance to extra emergency funds for banks -sources
- Australia - Westpac / Melbourne Institute Leading Index for January: +0.1% (prior flat)
- Australia Conference Board leading index +0.4%
It was the beginning of the Chinese/Lunar New Year holiday period in Asia today, with some regional markets closed and more will follow in coming days. This kept activity reasonably subdued.
Nevertheless, there was some action, with the conclusion of the BOJ policy meeting and subsequent announcement the major focal point.
The Bank of Japan kept policy unchanged, but they did upgrade their assessment of exports and output, for more see bullets, above.
USD/JPY initially dropped 30-odd points but bounced, stabilised and then drifted back toward the lows over the following hour or so.
A little prior to the BOJ announcement we saw a sharp sell-off in USD/CHF. Any movement in the CHF tends to be sharp now, with much reduced liquidity, especially in the Asian timezone, making for often very skittish trading. I am pretty sure 'financial stability' is not part of the Swiss National Bank's mandate so perhaps Thomas Jordan is off the hook for the Swiss franc hot-potato moves he has wrought.
The sharp drop in the USD/CHF was reflected in other currencies (i.e USD weakness), but not to same extent. As the USD/CHF recovered so did the USD more broadly. Having said all this, rnages were not overly large and will be dwarfed in Europe and the US once the Greek drama kicks in for the day. Stay tuned ...
