- Bank of England speakers today: Mann
- China's state planners says approved 49 projects in Q1 2023 worth circa 280bn yuan
- European Central Bank speakers today: Schnabel, Lane, Knot
- Reserve Bank of Australia expected to raise the cash rate by 25bp in May
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY central rate at 6.8731 (vs. estimate at 6.8728)
- Australian March leading index records its eighth consecutive negative print
- JP Morgan upgraded its China 2023 full-year GDP growth forecast to 6.4% (from 6%)
- ICYMI: Bank of America CEO says "Everything points to a relatively mild recession"
- ICYMI - ECB's Lane says Bank will hike rate in May, +25 or +50bp is data dependent
- White House Bernstein says China wants the USD to weaken as international reserve currency
- Japan - Reuters Tankan for April - manufacturers still net very pessimistic
- ICYMI - Goldman Sachs says there is a higher risk of credit contractions
- Note for diary: Yellen to deliver a major speech on US-China economic links on Thursday
- Reserve Bank of Australia minutes recap: ANZ says upcoming May meeting rate hike is 'live'
- 3 reasons there is scope for the yen carry trade revival
- Hong Kong's central bank has intervened in the currency again
- Forexlive Americas FX news wrap 18 Apr: USD moves lower in quiet trading day
- Private survey of oil inventory shows larger weekly headline draw than was expected
- Trade ideas thread - Wednesday, 19 April 2023
It was a very light session indeed for news and data, and we didn’t hear much from central banks either. An exception was the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (which serves as Hong Kong’s central bank). The HKMA intervened to support the HK dollar, which has fallen to the weak end of its permitted trading band (more on this info and what the band is in the relevant bullet point above).
Major FX rates have traded in subdued ranges and there is not a lot of net change on the session to report. EUR/JPY and yen crosses generally are higher, but ranges are small only.
Asian equity markets have traded mixed following a weak lead from Wall Street. Fed officials on Tuesday gave mixed messages, Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic indicated he saw one more rate hike of 25 basis points, before pausing to see its impact on the economy. This would take the Fed Funds rate to a range of 5% to 5.25%. St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard was more hawkish, saying he was in favour of a higher terminal rate between 5.50% and 5.75%. There are more Fed speakers on the agenda ahead (Goolsbee and Williams) – I’ll have a post up soon on expected timings for these.
Asian equity markets:
Japan’s Nikkei 225 -0.24%
China’s Shanghai Composite -0.23%
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng -0.51%
South Korea’s KOSPI +0.1%
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 +0.18%
