Forex news for Asia trading Friday 16 October 2015

Japan

  • Japan PM Abe says investment growth not enough when compared with corp profits
  • Japan data - International Transactions in Securities
  • Japan inflation gauge showing 1.4% y/y, 'a significant change'
  • Japan's slow nuclear plant reopening path

Australia, New Zealand

  • Aussie press: Goldman Sachs says El Nino could force RBA to cut interest rates
  • UBS expect an RBA rate cut in November
  • Westpac sees potential reassessment of their 'RBA on hold through 2016' view
  • RBA Financial Stability Report - Indicators of financial stress remain fairly benign
  • New Zealand: ASB expects RBNZ on hold in October and cut again in December
  • New Zealand Q3 CPI: 0.3% q/q (0.2% expected) and 0.4% y/y (0.3% expected)

Federal Reserve

  • More from Fed's Mester: At September FOMC she saw risks as higher
  • Fed's Mester Q&A now: Relatively confident inflation will move up over time
  • Fed's Mester: US economy can handle interest rate rise
  • People's Bank of China sets USD/CNY reference rate for today at 6.3436
  • BNP says its time to sell EUR/USD, look out for the ECB push-back
  • EU's Juncker: Financial aid for Turkey to be discussed in next days
  • China financing data for September
  • Trade ideas thread for Friday (yay!) 16 October 2015
  • US Treasury Secretary Lew: Stronger US economy naturally leads to stronger dollar

Cable was an early mover ... or late depending on your perspective I suppose ... selling down a rapid 40 or so points in the very late US afternoon/early Sydney ... a notoriously illiquid time of day. It bounced back nearly as quickly, with the move seemingly not related to any news release, more to do with a cluster of stops below 1.5475 and a thin market. it subsequently retraced its loss and tracked pretty much sideways for the session thereafter.

Federal Reserve Cleveland branch President Mester was next off the blocks, with (relatively) hawkish comments ... which left currencies pretty much unmoved.

Lack of much movement (apart from the cable rollercoaster) was pretty much the storu of the session, though.

There were moves in NZD and AUD. NZD traded a little higher heading into the Q3 CPI data release. it tried higher again in the wake of the higher than expected results before the sellers said 'That's enough of that thank-you very much" and took it fresh session lows, where it has pretty much chopped around in a 15-20 point range since.

AUD traded narrowly sideways until the release of the September Financial Stability Report from the Reserve Bank of Australia. I've a rundown of the report (see bullets, above), which the market has seen fit to sell the AUD on, down 35 or so points on the session and near its lows as I write.

EUR is more or less unchanged after a narrow day. USd/JPY continued its late US grind back up again, its near session highs. CHF ... is this thing on?

Gold is down a few dollars, oil has been more or less sideways.

Regional equities:

  • Shanghai +0.3%
  • Nikkei +1%
  • HK +0.4%
  • ASX +0.7%

Still to come:

  • Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kuroda speaking at 0635GMT