Forex news for Asia trading for Friday 16 April 2021
- Hedge fund titan Einhorn (try the pastrami) & the $100m deli business (with one store)
- China March Industrial production +14.1% y/y (expected +18%) + retails sales & investment data
- China Q1 2021 GDP: +0.6% q/q (expected +1.4%)
- US is preparing for a third booster shot of coronavirus vaccines
- China House Price Index for March 0.41% m/m (prior +0.36%)
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.5288 (vs. yesterday at 6.5297)
- Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda says 2% inflation target possible to achieve, but will take time
- Singapore March NODX +12.1% y/y (vs. expected +2.6%)
- Japan PM Suga and US President Biden to meet Friday - joint press conference to follow
- US news - Massachusetts regulators seek to revoke Robinhood's license
- More detail on Turkey banning Bitcoin, other cryptocurrency for payments
- Coronavirus - Japan is once again seeking to tighten restrictions
- Turkey has banned the use of cryptocurrencies to purchase goods and services
- Reuters Japan monthly Tankan: April manufacturer sentiment index +13 (vs March +6 )
- New Zealand - BusinessNZ manufacturing PMI for March: 63.6 (prior 53.4)
- Fed’s Daly is concerned about the frequency of Federal Reserve market interventions
- Fed's Mester (more): Economy has a long way to go until sustainable recovery
- US President Biden says he told Putin the US had concluded Russia interfered in the US election
- More from Fed's Mester - not concerned about inflation getting too high
- Trade ideas thread - Friday 16 April 2021
- Hedge fund manager Einhorn (Greenlight Capital) - stock market is just about "completely" broken
- Fed's Daly: We are going to need repeated months of good data, not there yet
- China's US Treasury holdings hit US$1.104tln, highest since the middle of 2019
- Fed's Mester says economy is still far from the Bank's employment goal
Morning trade in Asia has been characterised by a stronger USD across the major FX board. The move was not driven by news nor data (although we had a reasonable flow of both) but a combination of position trimming ahead of the big data release from China (more to come on this below) and the approaching weekend.
On the news front the broader acceptance of cryptocurrency was chipped away at yet again, this time with Turkey banning the use of digital currencies for transactions to purchase goods and services (see bullets above). Dominant crypto BTC has hardly been dented by the news and DOGE (flavour of the week it seems) continued to bubble (no judgement intended) away higher.
Fed officials were all over the wires in late US/early Asia with nothing to suggest any slicing back of stimulus any time soon.
On the data front the focus was China. Q1 GDP dipped back from Q4 on a q/q basis (+0.6% vs. a revised higher +3.2% in Q4 2020) but printed a record (for data going back to 1992) +18.3% y/y. Clearly the y/y result benefited hugely from the base effect of Q1 2020 being the nadir of China's pandemic-impacted economy but a record is a record. In addition to the Q1 economic growth numbers China report March 'activity' data; with a miss for investment and industrial production (but both were still strong) and a beat for retail sales. The retail sales beat is especially welcome as it is another indication of the recovery in domestic demand in China, the economy there has been leaning on exports and property market-fuelled growth, the consumer has been missing somewhat but appears to be back.
EUR, AUD, NZD, GBP, yen all slipped against the big dollar. CHF down a touch, CAD also, although it was (relatively) resilient.
Regional equities:
Japan's Nikkei +0.1%, Topix -0.05%
China's Shanghai Composite +0.15%
Hong Kong's Hang Seng -0.7%
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 -0.27%
DOGE higher again, off a little as I post:
