Forex news for Asia trading Friday 17 February 2017

  • BOJ’s Amamiya to appear before parliament from 4.40pm Tokyo time (0740GMT)
  • PBOC sold 208.8bn yuan in forex in January (Reuters calculation)
  • Japan quietly reflates, buying time for reckoning with debt
  • Reserve Bank of India Patel, says next rate move could Be anything, depends on inflation
  • EUR/USD not just about the Fed, but "risk is particularly elevated for 15 March"
  • Goldman Sachs economist sees risk of overheating Chinese economy
  • NZ PM English - agreed with Australia to pursue TPP
  • OIL - OPEC could extend cuts agreement as early as May (not fresh news)
  • EUR/USD orderboard
  • USD/JPY & EUR/JPY orders
  • AUD and NZD orderboards
  • PBOC sets USD/CNY mid-point today at 6.8456 (vs. yesterday at 6.8629)
  • One for the Aussies - Midnight Oil heading off on world tour in April
  • Forget hawk or dove, is Yellen a lame duck? Too early for a list of replacements?
  • Japan Fin Min Aso: To start economic dialogue with U.S. as early as in April
  • German FinMin: EU must take on a bigger international role, stop relying on US
  • Singapore final Q4 GDP y/y data is a beat (but read on ...)
  • Robert Shiller: Trump is a revolution - we could have a 'Roaring 20s' effect
  • PIMCO on the USD: Up, but slowly & limited.
  • Reuters Tankan: Manufacturers index highest since August 2014
  • The $17bn trade-gone-wrong fund says nope, not us... "Greatly exaggerated"
  • US holiday coming up Monday, markets closed
  • Trade ideas thread - Friday 17 February 2017
  • NZ Q4 Retail Sales (excl. inflation): +0.8% q/q (vs. expected +1.0%)
  • US stocks end little changed but lower. Record closes, stop.
  • RBNZ says upward pressure on NZD may be turning
  • BusinessNZ manufacturing PMI for January: 51.6 (prior 54.5)
  • Here's all the Economic data due from Asia today! (it's a short post)

ICYMI:

  • ForexLive Americas FX news wrap: Trump made things interesting

Subdued ranges prevailed again today in Asia, GBP a winner.

USD/JPY edged higher through much of the Tokyo morning, towards 113.50 before stabilising somewhat and dropping back under 113.30 as I update.

EUR and CHF are little changed on the session (against the USD), some early weakness (only a few points) pretty much reversed.

AUD popped back above 0.77 again, but only to around 0.7709 before coming back to the figure. Meanwhile NZD/USD moved to 0.7220 but has weakened since back towards 0.7200 (but not through). NZD had dropped earlier on some old news from a December 2016 RBNZ briefing note:

  • RBNZ says upward pressure on NZD may be turning

GBP/USD has gained, from circa 1.2480 its been as high as around 0.15210 and is just off there as I update.

Gold has done very little, oil also.

There was very little data today (two items from NZ, SG GDP final and some PBOC data (FX sales for January). News flow, too, very little indeed.

Regional equities:

  • Nikkei -0.66%
  • Shanghai -0.46%
  • HK -0.40%
  • ASX -0.21%

Still to come:

  • Bank of Japan's Amamiya to appear before parliament from 4.40pm Tokyo time (0740GMT). Masayoshi Amamiya is in charge of the Monetary Affairs Department, Financial Markets Department, and Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies. He is a very big wheel at the bank, he acts for the Governor when the Governor and the first and second officers are prevented from attending to their duties, and performs the Governor's duties during a vacancy in the office of the Governor and the first and second officers.
  • US holiday coming up Monday, markets closed

More:

Politics just won't go away ....

  • Robert Harward, a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral, turned down the offer to become national security adviser, officials said. The FT broke the story, but its gated. More at Bloomberg here.