Forex news for Asia trading Tuesday 12 May 2015

  • New Zealand house price inflation 9.3% y/y in April (prior +8.5% in March)
  • Australia's AAA rating not at risk says Fitch. (Well, that's a relief ... right? ;-) )
  • Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and U.S. President Barack Obama spoke by telephone today
  • NZ - NAB is "especially leery of calls for ear-term OCR cuts"
  • Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kuroda: Not thinking of cutting interest on excess reserves
  • Australia March Home loans: +1.6% m/m (vs. expected +1.0%)
  • UK may bring EU referendum forward to 2016
  • Australia ratings risk - "Lack of a credible medium-term fiscal consolidation plan"
  • Australia ANZ Roy Morgan weekly Consumer Sentiment: 110.6 ( prior was 108.7)
  • Moody's - Global economy to grow more strongly next year
  • UK - BRC April retail like-for-like sales: -2.4% (vs. expected +0.6%)
  • QIC chief economist - Australia risks finding itself with a "toxic mix" of policies
  • Australian Treasurer Hockey: Says budget deficit will be under market forecasts
  • New Zealand - ANZ Truckometer for April: -0.6% m/m (prior was -0.4%)
  • Goldman Sachs on shorting iron ore - more
  • Nikkei - Japan to target 1% primary deficit for fiscal year 2018

USD/JPY ticked net a few points higher during the session, continuing the move noted through the US timezone. There was little in the way of news out of Japan today. EUR/JPY drifted a little lower in the morning but moved above 134.10 as EUR/USD ticked back above session ighs from early losses.

Cable was more or less flat, which the CHF traded in a similar pattern to the EUR.

AUD/USD languished near and barely off its lows for much of the local morning, but started to tick higher after the housing finance data for March. Once again, investor property financing surged, reflecting in part lowered interest rates in February. Ahead of the budget this evening (local time) investor interest was relatively sparse, but this didn't stop a decent 35 or so point gain from the lows of the day.

NZD/USD finally displayed some form of a bounce, albeit not too much ... from just under 0.7330 it gained 30 or so points. NAB was out with a piece questioning to '2 interest rate cuts coming' meme that had gathered pace on Monday (see bullets, above).

Oil was basically flat on the session, and gold ... well, pretty flat also, edged up a dollar and a half if you're a bull, but only 150 cents if you're a bear :-).

As of writing ... Nikkei is down around 0.6%, Hang Seng -0.4%, Australia -0.4% alos, while the Shanghai Composite +0.8%.

Still to come:

  • Australian budget tonight, due at 0930GMT