Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 14 May 2015

  • Who loves the cheap yen? Toyota to boost directors' pay by 20% after record profit surge
  • China ... overnight and 7-day repo rates tumbling
  • Moody's: China's latest interest rate cut will lower bank profitability
  • Fitch: New macroprudential rules are a credit positive for New Zealand banks
  • Smartest students in the world ... Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan
  • US retail sales data overnight seen as being a disappointment ... but was it?
  • Goldman Sachs on oil - Rig count drop not yet large enough to reduce production
  • HSBC on the risk of a US recession & what could be done
  • Japan data: M2, M3, securities flows
  • UK RICS House Price Balance: 33% (vs. 22% expected)
  • New Zealand Core Retail Sales for Q1: +2.7% (vs. expected +1.6%)
  • New Zealand - Business NZ manufacturing PMI for April: 51.8 (prior was 54.6)
  • China - latest data coming in under expectations
  • The strongest and weakest currencies for May 13 2015

Another light news flow day accompanied by tight ranges in EUR, GBP, CHF and yen against the USD.

NZD was once again the star. It ticked a little higher in trade leading up to the Tokyo open and then jumped ahead of the local data releases. While the manufacturing PMI is not much of a market focus, retail sales dat is. And, wow, did it deliver. The 2.7% q/q jump was the largest even recorded for this data series (it dates back to 2003) and kiwi $ dollar buyers ahead of the release are to be commended for their, errr, prescience. Nothing suss.

AUD/USD wasn't to be left in the shade, though, it edged higher along with the NZD, and jumped above 0.8160 to trigger a few stops before settling 40-odd points lower (as of writing).

Oil had a wobble, dipping early but ticking back to recover the early losses within a narrow sort of range. Gold was a little softer on the session in a $3 or so range.

Still to come:

  • Japan data due at 0600GMT - Machine tool orders (preliminary) for April:
  • For NZD traders ... New Zealand finance minister English speech at 0700GMT