Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 6 February 2020
- Reports that China is to cut trade-war tariffs on some goods imported from the US by 50%, From Feb 14
- Remember Hyundai shutting down all production? S&P now warn on supply chain disruption
- Taiwan has banned international cruise ships from docking at the island
- Nomura have done a flip on some their currency calls due to coronavirus
- UK For Sec Raab says hopes Australia will be part of first wave of free trade deals
- Global PMI hit a ten-month high in January
- Australian PM Morrison says the economy will be significantly hit from coronavirus
- Fitch says the ongoing coronavirus outbreak will dampen economic growth in China this year
- BOJ's Masai says there will be more easing without hesitation if needed
- PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.9985 (vs. yesterday at 6.9823)
- FX option expiries for Thursday February 06 at the 10am NY cut
- Australian dollar falls, pops on the data dump - retail sales data disappointment
- National Australia Bank business survey for Q4: -1Business confidence (prior -1)
- Australia Retail Sales excluding inflation for Q4: 0.5% q/q (expected 0.3%)
- Australia Retail Sales for December: -0.5% m/m (expected -0.2%)
- Australia trade balance for December: AUD 5223bn surplus (expected AUD 5.6bn)
- Westpac have an April RBA rate cut forecast, but say Lowe might take more time to be convinced
- Goldman Sachs expects the RBA to keep interest rates on hold in 2020
- China updates total coronavirus cases to 28,018 (from 24,324 yesterday)
- Airline Cathay Pacific is asking its 27,000 workers to take 3 weeks off without pay
- Australia's biggest fund manager is not as optimistic as the RBA is
- Updated coronavirus figures from Hubei province in China - total cases just under 20K now
- CAD dep PM Freeland is leading a high-level posse to Washington for trade talks
- Fed's Brainard says illicit activities using Bitcoin is a huge issue
- Trade ideas thread - Thursday 6 February 2020
- US stocks add to their gains. Nasdaq/S&P close at record levels
Risk trades jumped today with China announcing it was cutting some of the tariffs it imposed on US goods back on September 1 by around 50%. Along with announcing the dial-back China made positive comments on trade.
Overnight US stock futures gained more on this tariff news. For currencies, the 'risk' sensitive trades benefitted.
Other fresh input on the session came from a stack of data released from Australia. It was mixed (see bullets above) but encouraging enough not to damage the AUD beyond a momentary few points down before recovering.
Ranges across major FX stayed small again with only minor directional moves taking place.
Gold lost a few dollars
Regional equity markets here are all a touch higher for the day so far. The Shanghai Comp is up around 1%.
