Forex news for Asia trading Friday 27 February 2015
Japan
- Japan PM Abe - May delay next sales tax hike if unexpected crisis occurs
- Japan fund managers looking for better returns ...
- BOJ Governor Kuroda: Japan economy recovering moderately as a trend, prices are rising
- More from Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda
- Japan data - January retail sales: -1.3% m/m (vs. -0.4% expected)
- Japan January Industrial Production (prelim): +4.0% m/m (vs. +2.7% expected)
- Japan data - Overall household spending: -5.1% y/y (-4.1% expected) - also, jobs data
- Japan - January CPI: 2.4% y/y (vs. +2.4% expected)
China
- China - yuan falls to its lowest since October 2012
Australia/New Zealand
- Latest Bloomberg survey - 16 of 27 economists survey see RBA cut in March
- RBA rate cut talk weighing on the AUD
- Westpac - RBA to cut cash rate by 25bps next week and adopt an easing bias
- Australia - Private Sector Credit for January: +0.6% m/m (+0.5% expected)
- New Zealand - ANZ business confidence for February: 34.4 (vs. prior 30.4)
- JP Morgan changes their RBA forecast - expect a cut on Tuesday
- New Zealand January Building Consents: -3.8% m/m (prior -2.1%)
More
- UK GfK consumer confidence for February: 1(vs. expected 2)
- Wall Street Journal: Fed's Williams sees door open for hikes starting in June
A huge data dump day out of Japan, the good news being that industrial production came in well ahead of expectations, but the bad news was that retail sales and household spending continue to languish, worse than already low expectations. And not to mention inflation, with japanese core inflation coming low and lower (than expectations) again (see bullets, above). Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda was his normal ebullient self ... "Japan's economy recovering moderately as a trend, prices are rising" ... and PM Abe warned there are circumstance in which he would delay the next sales tax rise "if an unexpected event such as another global financial crisis or a huge earthquake occurs". Through all the day's turmoil the level-headed yen didn't flinch ... USD/JPY traced out a restrained 30-odd point fall, the yen crosses geing generally weaker with it but subject to moves in other currencies.
Like the cable, for instance, with gained 30-odd points on the session from where I walked in. Consumer confidence data was out, in below expectations but otherwise not much in the way of news flow for it.
EUR/USD gained around 15 points - again, nearly zero news for it.
The CHF performed better, USD/CHF down 30-odd points (I really should get that on cut and paste for today). EUR/CHF had a wiggle and is pretty much unchanged for earlier ... down a few tics from Sydney morning only.
AUD/USD tried to recover some of its overnight losses .... but after rallying maybe 20 or so points from overnight lows it took another hit as talk of more and more expectations for an RBA cut next week did the rounds. It made a new low (compared with overnight), but is more or less unchanged as i write.
The NZD net gained on the session, testing above 0.7550 but settling just below as I update.
Still to come .... Data coming out over the weekend - China official PMIs
