Forex news for Asia trading Friday 20 March 2020
- Australian PM Morrison says the budget will be delayed to October
- South Korea new coronavirus cases dip under 100 again
- AUD liking the RBA & Fed establishing swap lines for the provision of USD liquidity
- Coronavirus - Goldman Sachs forecast the highest level of jobless claims on record coming up: 2.25 million
- US - coronavirus - Governor of California issues a state-wide stay at home order
- Fox news' Tucker Carlson - Senator betrayed country in a time of crisis
- PBOC China Loan Prime Rates left unchanged
- Here is another US Senator found to have dumped shares prior to the stock market crash
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 7.1052(vs. yesterday at 7.0522)
- FX option expiries for Friday March 20 at the 10am NY cut
- Pelosi, Schumer disputing McConnel stimulus bill - puts corporations ahead of workers
- Trump administration wants state labor officials to delay releasing unemployment numbers
- Coronavirus - Australian banks will defer small business loan repayments for six months
- US - coronavirus - Los Angeles County issue a stay at home order, closure of all nonessential businesses
- RBA conduct their first ever round of QE bond buying: AUD 5bn
- This week the Fed will buy more than half of the $500bn in govt debt purchases that was only announced on Sunday!
- Distressed debt doubles in a week in the US
- People with blood type A may be more vulnerable to coronavirus (China study)
- Coronavirus - New York City Mayor DeBlasio says expects to run out of medical supplies in 2 to 3 weeks
- US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says his goal is to get the next coronavirus relief bill signed on Monday
- Coronavirus - Auckland (NZ) shuts libraries, pools, recreation centres for 2 weeks
- The three things to look for showing a return to normal after the COVID-19 outbreak
- COVID-19 - Trump has cancelled the June G7 at Camp David, videoconference instead
- Fed's Daly is encouraged by market volatility tamping down
- UK's chief Brexit negotiator is isolating himself - coronavirus symptoms
- Report - US Senator dumped up to USD 1.6m of stocks after reassuring public about coronavirus preparedness
- ECB's Guindos says ECB can do even more
- UK PM Johnson says UK "can turn the tide" against coronavirus in the next 12 weeks … but
- Trade ideas thread - Friday 20 March 2020
A backing off of the intense demand for US dollars helped markets on Thursday and that breather continued in Asia today. The USD slid on its crosses; EUR, yen, GBP, CHF ,CAD, even the AUD and NZD managed to post gains. The RBA announced a 60bn FX swap line with the Fed (the Fed had flagged this was coming) to ease US funding pressures - and it is not only the RBA the Fed is setting these lines up with. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Bank of Korea, and Monetary Authority of Singapore will all benefit here in Asia. Elsewhere:
- Banco Central do Brasil
- Danmarks Nationalbank
- Banco de Mexico
- Norges Bank
- Sveriges Riksbank.
will all have similar.
As a further note from Australia - commercial banks will allow small business impacted by COVID-19 to defer loan repayments for six months.
Negotiations continued in the US on the next economic relief bill. US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said his goal is to have it signed by Monday. The whole state of California was placed in lockdown by its Governor, all non-essential businesses to shut.
There is a bit of US political news related to the coronavirus in the bullets above, two senators (one is the Chair of the US Senate Intelligence Committee) were given briefings on the nation-threatening pandemic, after which they assured the public (along with other members of the administration) everything was just fine, while unloading share holdings prior to the market crash. Note that Tucker Carlosn, a big influencer of US President Trump has called for resignations and prosecution, and characterised the actions as betrayal of the country in a time of crisis. There may be more to come on this, and electoral implications.
Goldman Sachs issued a forecast for an apocalyptic (sorry for the adjective but it does seem fitting) 2.25 million jobless claims number. In other news the administration has asked states not to publish jobless claims. More on both of these in the bullets above.
The People's Bank of China left its loan prime rates for both 1 and 5 years on hold. The onshore yuan was set at its lowest for 12 years (ie USD/CNY at its highest).
This from the White House (tweet). Good advice:
