Forex and Bitcoin news for Asia trading Monday 19 March 2018
- PBOC Governor Yi Gang: PBOC to continue prudent monetary policy
- IHS Markit survey shows UK households report fastest income growth since 2016
- German Economic Minister Altmaier warns against trade war ahead of trip to US
- All China new home prices (February) +0.2% m/m & +5.2% y/y
- More on 45 US trade groups urge Trump to avoid tariffs against China
- Japan PM Abe says he and his wife not involved in tampering with documents
- BOJ Summary of Opinions (March meeting) ... persistent easing necessary
- Japan - Trade Balance for February: Y 34.0bn (expected Y 89.1bn)
- New Zealand - Services PMI for February 55.0 (prior 55.8)
- EU publishes US tariffs retaliation lists. Totalling €6.4 billion
- BoE head Carney says cryptocurrencies don't pose risk to financial stability
- US Treasury, CFTC asked to investigate bogus FX deals, manipulation
- Trade ideas thread - Monday 19 March 2018
- Bundesbank vice president Buch: cryptocurrencies no threat to financial stability
- Barclays trade recommendation to short NZD (target, stop)
- Its official - Putin claims victory in Russia election
- W/e ECB - Weidmann says good economy developments, inflation to allow rapid end to QE
- US Treasury’s Malpass Says he misspoke on talks with China being discontinued
- W/e ECB - Villeroy says progress to inflation target slower than expected
- Weekend ECB comments – Knot confident inflation to hit target … ‘at some point’
Weekend:
- Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are having a miserable weekend
- Yi Gang to take over leadership of PBOC - report
- Abe's popularity falls as document-altering scandal continues
- Russia holds Presidential election (spoiler: Putin wins)
- Iran to permanently block Telegram messaging app within weeks
- Russia retaliates by expelling 23 British diplomats
- Former FBI deputy director McCabe fired 26 hours before retirement
USD/JPY had a pop (105.95-odd to 106.15-odd) on the BOJ 'Summary' (more in the bullets above on this; I highlighted the yen remarks from the Summary as an interesting development and its these that would seem to have given the US/yen a bit of a pop) but the move was soon retraced, and more. USD/JPY down to a fresh session low within 90 minutes or so. USD/JPY sales above 106 reported from global macro trading firms weighed on it, leveraged sellers eyeing weakness in stocks as a factor supporting yen (risk negative, yen positive ..... on the risk negative side of things this weighed on AUD again here today though the move was small only ... testing 0.7700).
(Note yen crosses lower also, and stop loss sellers took EUR/JPY under 130.00)
While a small range for the USD/JPY it was pretty much the best we had as a fairly typical Monday in Asia rolled out. EUR, GBP, CHF AUD and CAD all fell a few points against the USD. NZD/USD was a bit of an exception, but not by too much - its up a few points against the bigger dollar on the session.
While there was plenty of news flow over the weekend and on the week-opener here today, as you can see impacts were minor.
We await Europe, the UK and then US trade, although the economic calendar is light on there should be politics to come and perhaps some central bank speak.
Bitcoin and the crypto complex had a poor weekend, BTC price down around 1000USD since Friday, continuing the last week losses. Weekend comments from central bankers were, surprisingly, not too harsh at all (see bullets above).
Still to come: