Forex news for Asia trading Wednesday 3 February 2016

China:

Japan:

API oil inventory data and then New Zealand Q4 employment kicked off the day, with the oil price falling on another big inventory build and the NZD popping on better employment data. Reserve Bank of New Zealand Governor Wheeler spoke, indicating its going to take more than the lowe inflation number for him to ease again.

The Bank of Japan released the December meeting minutes to little interst. The January Minutes will be much more interesting.

Australian data followed, the trade balance showing a huge deficit blow out as mining exports shrunk dramatically. Building approvals were out at the same time, and these showed a m/m bounce (they are a volatile data set). The Australian dollar lost ground on the data, quickly marked down 30 or so points.

Chinese stock markets opened lower, along with other regional exhanges.

Durng all this the USD/JPY was dropping away. down around 60-odd points. It had a bit of a bounce when head cheerleader Kuroda gave a speech, with a decent 30 or so point bounce. it wasn;t sustained, USD/JPY dipped to a slight new session lows but has since bounced again and is above 119.60 as I update.

EUR/USD ticked a little higher before being turned down from around 1.0935. Although 'risk off' has favoured EUR/USD its finding the mid 1.09s sticky.

Cable was more or less sideways, USD/CHF marginally softer.

Through it all the NZD/USD has remained fairly soid, and it knocking on session highs as I update.

Gold is little changed, down a little.

Regional equities:

  • Nikkei -2.92%
  • Shanghai -1.17%
  • HK -2.49%
  • ASX -2.16%