ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: Japan Q1 economic growth much better than expected

  • Forex news for Asian trading on Wednesday, 17 May 2023

Preliminary GDP data for Japan in the January – March quarter was released today, coming in well above expectations at +0.4% q/q (versus the +0.1% that was the median consensus).

While this is a solid expectation beat its still not overly quick growth, but it’s the first positive for 3 quarters. USD/JPY hasn’t done much in response. Up a few points from earlier lows but still under its Tuesday (US time) high.

From Australia today we had wages data, which came in subdued. The Australian dollar dipped a little after the numbers but has since recovered and is net a little higher on the session.

NZD/USD rallied with another bank in New Zealand forecasting further rate hikes to come from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, both this month and at the following meeting in July.

There was little news nor data of impact otherwise. China house price growth, April data, came in positive on a m/m basis but the number of cities showing rises fell in comparison to March.

We had comments out of the participants in US debt ceiling negotiations. There is still no resolution in sight based on the remarks, which were mixed. US President Biden is heading off to the G7 summit in Japan that begins on Friday. He had intended visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia following this but cancelled these plans to head back to Washington for more debt talks.

The offshore yuan traded at around 7.01 vs the US dollar, heading above the psychological big round number level of 7 for the first time since December 28.

Asian equity markets:

  • Japan’s Nikkei 225 +0.66%

  • China’s Shanghai Composite -0.17%

  • Hong Kong’s Hang Seng -0.24%

  • South Korea’s KOSPI +0.6%

  • Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 -0.5%

USD/CNH:

usdcnh wrap chart 17 May 2023

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