Forex news for Asia trading Friday 27 March 2015

  • Why Does Yemen Matter to the World's Oil Market?... Are oil prices likely to continue rising?
  • How much lower for EUR/USD? "A lot" says Barclays
  • US dollar - how are the month end flows shaping up?
  • China January-February industrial profits: -4.2% y/y
  • Goldman Sachs: "We lean slightly to an April cut" from the RBA
  • Japan PM Abe: Definitely getting results on exiting deflation in Japan
  • Ex-MPC member - US employment outlook is much weaker, Fed shouldn't raise rates
  • Japan CPI ... is this a downtrend?
  • Japan - retail trade for February: -1.8% y/y (expected -1.5%
  • Japan data - household spending, jobless rate and more - out now
  • Japan CPI data out now - February National CPI: 2.2% y/y (vs. +2.3% expected)
  • Nikkei: (BOJ) Board's new face mostly sees eye to eye with Kuroda
  • The results are in ... Cameron beats Miliband in UK election TV show
  • "Pioneering RBNZ joins peers paring guidance" (forward guidance, that is)
  • ForexLive Video: A techical look at the USDCHF. Looking to buy.
  • Citi make an interesting point on the Australian dollar - watch for verbal intervention

It was a staid sort of day for FX today in Asia.

The major news was Japanese CPI data - which showed zero for Japanese national core inflation in February. That didn't stop PM Abe from loudly crowing that he was getting results on exiting deflation in Japan, though. Maybe smoking weed is legal in the Diet?

But, I digress.

USD/JPY did very little on the session, drifting under 119.10 very briefly and then grinding out 30-odd points up towards 40.

EUR/USD and cable did even less. We had the two political party leaders on the telly in the UK. GBP didn't care a jot. A poll declared Cameron the winner. It wasn't clear what the prize was.

AUD/USD dropped 40 or so points. Dalian iron-ore futures locked limit down at one stage ... the Aussie dollar market didn't like this one bit and took out stops below .7800 before seeing a little recovery. There are more stops below 0.7790 and price action as I write suggests these are in clear and present danger. Bids ahead of 90 held earlier, though, so there's that.

As mentioned in the headline,oil gave back some ground from early session highs, but didn't quite manage to test as low as the overnight US bottom under (WTI) 50 dollars.

Gold was down a few dollars.

Still to come, late in the US session, Janet Yellen rounds off a busy week of Federal Reserve speakers with a speech from San Francisco.

Ahead of her, though, plenty of central bankers and such gobbing off:

  • 0800GMT BOE's Haldane speaks at an event in Amsterdam
  • 0800GMT also, BUBA and ECB's Weidmann speaks in Frankfurt
  • 0845GMT, BoE's Carney speaks in Frankfurt
  • 0915GMT BOE's Broadbent speaks in London
  • 1030GMT Federal Reserve's vice chair Fischer speaks in Frankfurt (its a BUBA conference in Frankfurt today)
  • 1245GMT German finance minister Schaeuble speaks (you guessed it ... Frankfurt)
  • 0115GMT Riksbank's Ingves speaks in Dubbo. OK, I'm kidding. In Frankfurt.
  • 1600GMT Canadian PM Harper makes an announcement
  • 1945GMT Yellen speaks in San Fran
  • 2130GMT Canadian PM Harper speaks again