Forex news for Asia trading Friday 1 May 2015 - a holidays across many Asian centres
- Australian Treasurer Hockey: No suggestion of downgrade risk to Australia's AAA rating
- Latest Bloomberg survey shows 23 of 27 economists expect RBA cut next week
- New Zealand QV house price inflation to 12-month high
- More from NZ finmin English: RBNZ may change view on rates as inflation slows
- Japan Markit/JMMA Manufacturing PMI for April: 49.9 ( flash was 49.7)
- Australia - Q1 PPI: +0.5% q/q (prior +0.1%)
- Japan - Labor Cash earnings: +0.1% y/y (expected +0.4%, prior +0.1%)
- China official April Manufacturing PMI: 50.1 (expected 50) & Services 53.4 (prior 53.7) and More on China manufacturing PMI
- Comments from New Zealand finance minister English
- Australia - CoreLogic RP Data/Rismark house price index April: +0.8% m/m, prior was +1.4%
- Japan Buying Foreign Bonds, Y 185.3B (plus, the rest of this data)
- Japan - March CPI at 2.3% y/y vs. 2.2% expected
- Japan data - household spending, jobless rate and job to applicant ratio
- Australia data - AiG Performance of Manufacturing index for April 48.0 (prior 46.3)
- UK election: Labour leader Miliband would rather forgo being in government than do a deal with the SNP
- It's month end. What were the strongest and weakest currencies in April?
- The Asian centres open and closed today
Holidays across much of Asia today, including in Hong Kong, Singapore and China, meant more illiquid FX trading conditions than usual.
EUR, GBP and CHF were all quietly range bound, off a few tics against the USD only, if at all. No fresh news impacted on these in Asia today.
USD/JPY was barely more active, ticking higher by around 30-odd points. CPI data from Japan today showed a slight uptick in March headline inflation, while the Japanese 'core' national inflation rate gained a little also. The more timely Tokyo data (for April CPI) showed a better gain for both headline and core.
AUD and NZD had some movement. NZD/USD sold off on comments from finance minister English (see bullets, above) which could either be read as him saying restrained inflation gave the scope for the RBNZ to ease, or, if you prefer, a finance minister putting a bit of pressure on the central bank to ease.
The AUD drifted down from late NY highs around 0.7920, off nearly 50 points in thin trading. A slightly better manufacturing PMI from China and the PPI data had little impact.
Still to come from Australia a little later, commodity price index.
