Forex news for Asia trading Wednesday 10 June 2015

Australia & New Zealand:

  • RBA Stevens Q&A now: Need to emphasize sustainable growth through policy
  • Elliot wave technical analysis of the AUD/USD
  • Does the RBA have an easing bias?
  • AUD lower in the wake of RBA head Stevens' comments
  • RBA governor Stevens: Says AUD needs to fall further
  • Moody's revises outlook on Western Australia's Aa1 rating to negative
  • Morgan Stanley expects AUD/USD to 0.68 by year end, then 0.62 by end 2016
  • Australia - Westpac Consumer Confidence Index for June: -6.9% m/m (prior was +6.4%)
  • Australia - ANZ Roy Morgan weekly consumer confidence: 112.1 (prior was 113.5)
  • RBNZ decision this week (tomorrow) - Morgan Stanley on what to expect
  • New Zealand card spending data out now, retail and total both higher m/m
  • Preview of the RBNZ monetary policy meeting from Goldman Sachs

Japan

  • Japan's vice finmin: 'We are surely going to raise sales tax in 2017'
  • BOJ's Kuroda: Fed rate hike may not weaken yen if already priced in
  • BOJ head Kuroda: Japan's economy is recovering moderately
  • BOJ's Sato - comments on upcoming Fed rate hike & BOJ easing impacts
  • Japan PPI: -2.1% y/y (-2.2% expected)
  • Japan April Machine Tool orders: +3.8% m/m (expected -2.1%) ... a big beat

More:

  • The WSJ says the prior 3 Fed meetings may have been 'the calm before the storm'T
  • More on China closer to joining MSCI Emerging Markets Index
  • MSCI says minimum of 12 mths b/w announcement & implementation for China index inclusion
  • MSCI & China shares: "Could pull the plug on the A-share rally in the short-term"
  • Iceland's central bank to be much more active in currency market
  • MSCI expects to include China stocks in its global indices
  • API: crude oil inventories -6.7mln bbls

A few moves in the currencies today but it was the AUD and NZD in the limelight.

Weak consumer sentiment data (2 data points on that today, see bullets, above) was a negative, but it was the speech from RBA Governor Stevens that shoved it lower, from around 0.7680 down to 0.7650 and then lower still to just under 0.7640 before some support became evident. Its back around 0.7650 as I write.

NZD/USD edged net slightly higher up until Stevens' speech, then dropped from around 0.7150 to just under 0.7110. There's an RBNZ decision due tomorrow morning (NZ time), previews above along with links to prior previews.

EUR/USD ticked back above 1.1300 in the morning going here today before giving back much of the gain to more or less barely changed since I walked in. A small range though on the session.

GBP, CHF followed a similar pattern. CHF the weakest of these three.

USD/JPY was very marginally better bid through the session, until mid-morning Tokyo when it put on a bit of a gentle spurt for a net around 30 point gain on the session. there was plenty of data and comments from BOJ talking heads (see bullets, above).

Oil jumped in late NY on the API data release and consolidated that gain in Asia by adding another half dollar at one stage. Gold attempted higher but ends the session just a net few cents lower.