ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: China interest rate unchanged, Q2 GDP contracted

  • Forex news for Asian trading on Friday 15 July 2022

The focus for the session was on China. We had a key interest rate setting event:

  • the maturing 1-year Medium-term Lending Facility was rolled over, 100bn yuan at an unchanged rate of 2.85%
  • the unchanged MLF rate is a strong indication that next week’s (Wednesday 20 July) one- and five-year Loan Prime Rate (LPR) settings will also be unchanged (1-year is 3.7%, 5-year is 4.45%)

On the economic data agenda we had Q2 GDP:

  • the economy contracted q/q in Q2 (see points above for the q/q and y/y GDP data), the downturn came amidst the extended lockdowns in Shanghai and other cities to fight virus outbreaks

We also had June activity data, which, unsurprisingly, showed a bounce back for the economy:

  • industrial output and retail sales both recovered from the previous month (see bullets above)

An interesting item was from New Zealand, where the manufacturing PMI dropped into contraction for the first time since August of 2021. No one outside of New Zealand pays a lot of attention to the NZ PMIs but I’d highlight this result as a heads up to what is likely to be ahead for other economies. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand was a leader in interest rate hikes amongst DM central banks globally, in their fight against inflation. A key feature, not a bug, of tightening interest rates to fight inflation is to take the heat out of the economy. The difficult part is not taking too much heat out and forcing the economy into recession. The NZ economy is slowing, but is not in recessionary territory. But the RBNZ will be eyeing the risk ahead as it continues on its rate hike path. Other DM central banks will soon be in the same boat.

FX rates were little net changed during the session.

Oil is up just a touch.

Equities in the region are mixed.

Oil:

oil chart wrap 15 July 2022

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