- Moody’s unifies Japan’s government ratings at Aa2
- China will have to take additional measures if economic recovery loses momentum. Needs relatively steady yuan at this time – National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)
- Japan Vice FinMin Sugimoto: Watching fx moves carefully, don’t want fx to have negative impact on economy
- Euro zone March trade balance +0.4 bln euros vs revised -1.0 bln (prev -2.0 bln) in February
- ECB’s Weber: Warns against drawing too optimistic assumptions from positive data. ECB rates are appropriate.
Case of sterling strong, JPY weak, and euro sidelined this morning.
EUR/USD very narrow rangebound. Slight dip early was met by decent buy interest. Reports of buy orders from Asian sovereign, Middle East names (possibly including sovereign) down at 1.3425/30 helping to underpin. Decent technical support levels also between 1.3410/30.
USD/JPY was sitting around 95.40 and spiked higher to 95.91 on comments from Japanese Vice Finance Minister Sugimoto. Japan seemingly unhappy with recent JPY strength and likely negative impact on economy.
Cable had a good morning, underpinned by bullish article on Bloomberg. Headling reads pound “screaming buy” but the “screaming buy” comment was seemingly made about UK property. Gains accelerated when stops above 1.5200 were triggered and then a further boost from aggressive GBP/JPY buying in wake of Japanese Vice Finance Minister comment.