Forex and Bitcoin news for Asia trading Tuesday 31 January 2018

An active day for data and some market movement also.

Bitcoin dropped heavily in Europe/US trade, this didn't help the beleaguered crypto complex:

The fall continued into Asia:

Early (very) Asia, or late US (your choice) brought oil inventory survey data, showing a larger than was expected build and sending the oil price lower still (see bullets above).

OK, onto forex. There was plenty of market-moving (or potentially market moving at least) data and news, in order (note, please check out the details for these in the bullets above):

  • Japan industrial production (prelim, for December) - a beat
  • Bank of Japan 'Summary of Opinions' for the January meeting, with a subtle change in emphasis I noted
  • UK data
  • Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda spoke in the Diet
  • Australian inflation data (we only get official CPI figures once a quarter from the land down under, so always garners attention)
  • Australian credit growth data - overshadowed by the CPI but worth paying to regards to - some slowing but also not a really great detail from policy makers perspective
  • Official PMIs from China - manufacturing a little slower, services better
  • The Bank of Japan increased the amount of JGBs it bought (yes, you read that right - increased)
  • And US President Trump spoke - State of the Union address

Whew!

The Australian dollar lost ground after the inflation data. It was a slight miss on headline and one of the core measures, which was enough to see the AUD marked down 40-odd points (before a little bounce). AUD has continued to trade in the lower part of its session range since, but as I update its making an effort to tick higher.As i update, too, NZD/USD is well and truly breaking to a new session high, and the CAD is gaining against the USD. As I noted in the posts above, President Trump did not have much to say on trade - he was expected to be perhaps a little more aggressive on his 'US first' outlook but that wasn't really reflected in the miniscule trade portion of his speech (78 words out of 5200!). A positive for AUD, NZD and CAD indeed.

EUR/USD is slightly higher on the session, USD/CHF is at the lower end of its session range and cable is ticking a few points to the better.

USD/JPY was more active than these three; it popped above 109 (coinciding with the expanded BOJ JGB purchases) then gave it all back to circa 108.80 before trying again over 109 and dipping back toward 108.85 as I update.

Still to come