Forex trading news and economic data headlines 25 April 2017
News:
- Japan's Abe to visit Russia and UK between 27-30 April
- BOJ's Kuroda expects CPI to pick up toward 2%
- Dai-Ichi Life cautious on buying more Eurozone bonds
- Sumitomo Life says it plans to increase foreign bond holdings with currency hedges in 2017/18
- ECB's Nowotny voices his concerns over future US measures
- Latest Opinionway poll has Macron still with a comfortable lead over Le Pen
- North Korea conducts large scale live fire drills
- Yen selling runs out of steam as core pairs run into offers again
- Russia will wait until next OPEC meeting before deciding on extension of output cut deal
- ECB says that QE has negative impact on bank margins
- China's crude oil imports rise 19.5% yy in March at 38.95m tones
- China will continue proactive fiscal policy
- Option expiries for the 10 am NY cut today 25 April
- Nikkei 225 closes up +1.08% at 19,079.33
Data:
- March 2017 UK PSNB 4.365bn vs 1.500bn exp m/m
- France April manufacturing confidence 108 vs 105 expected
- Spain March PPI mm -0.8% vs -1.2% prev
While equity markets may have paused for breath there was still some risk on appetite for most of the session with euro demand and yen selling still in vogue.
Little by way of data or rhetoric but we've seen USDJPY rise to 110.54 after holding 109.60 in Asia and above 110.00 in early Europe.. Yen pairs have been only to happy to follow suit and we've seen EURJPY to 120.50 and GBPJPY to 141.78.
Core pairs though have notable offers/res and that's helping to stall the rally for the moment with EURUSD failing at 1.0900 again and GBPUSD at 1.2829 to name but two.
USDCAD continues to hold o/n gains above 1.3540 in the wake of Trump's plan to tax Canadian lumber imports while similar threats to dairy products have also impacted on the NZD to fall from 0.7000 to test 0.6950 helped down by EURNZD demand.
AUDUSD has also been in retreat to 0.7522 from 0.7565 despite some AUDJPY and AUDNZD demand.
Oil prices have been steady amid ongoing discussion about whether the OPEC/non-OPEC output cut deal will be extended at the 25 May meeting.
Thin data slate to come but we do have US CB consumer confidence and new home sales to keep things ticking over.
