ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: USD/JPY gains 100 pips | Forexlive

While driving I noticed several vehicles stopped to provide water. When asked why these drivers stopped coming forward I replied with: ‘ah well I just can’t be bothered mending these roads to give people water’ Markets are closed.Weekend news includes “Yellen Cautioned on Currency Intervention After Surge in Yen”.Trade Ideas Thread was started Monday 6 May to discuss charts, technical analysis and ideas about currency intervention following an increase in yen strength.Gaza ceasefire hopes have begun fading; Weekly Market Outlook 06-10 May Highlights Include RBA, BoE and BoJ SOO meetings this week as well as Canada Jobs Report and UK GDP.Forexlive Americas FX news wrap dated 3 May: US jobs report weaker than expected this month
Today was a Japanese national holiday and markets were closed as markets are typically. Unfortunately there has been no sign of Bank of Japan intervention nor comments by officials to support the yen in any meaningful manner. Overall the day could not go better for Japan!
On Saturday US Treasury Secretary Yellen made her remarks, not demonstrating support for Japan’s attempts at pushing up the yen through intervention. Her tone wasn’t harsh nor did she sound unsupportive – this should come as no surprise; clear signals had already been provided during last week.
USD/JPY has moved steadily higher during Asian trade today to trade at around 153.95. Additionally, Saudi Aramco raised their June official selling prices.
Arab Light crude prices were offered to Asian customers at reduced levels on Saturday morning, providing some support for futures trading of oil prices as we opened a new week. Plus, on Saturday Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway issued its quarterly earnings report detailing first quarter 2018 performance – further fuelling oil price volatility this morning!
At issue was an explosive announcement by JPMorgan Chase of its decision to cut its Apple stake by 13% during Q1, which put some weight on Nasdaq futures (NQ) trade and weigh on news flow somewhat in Asia whereas news had minimal bearing and data flow had little influence over Asian stocks and futures markets.
China was most notable this month due to another impressive expansion for their Caixin Services and Composite PMIs – this services PMI having now registered expansion for 16 consecutive months, along with several others from their PMI series – further evidence that its economy is flourishing. In April all PMIs from China showed expansion as well, providing further evidence of China’s positive trend development.
Chinese markets reopened following their three day closure last Wednesday through Friday. We experienced our inaugural People’s Bank of China USD/CNY reference setting since Tuesday last week – this lifted CNY up to its highest value since three weeks (ie, lowest).
PBOC set a USD/CNY reference rate which was almost 1300 pips from Reuters estimate; their attempts at holding back devaluation have proven futile thus far (ps. devaluation is my preferred term here).
Depreciation, however, remains more relevant to floating currencies due to manipulation efforts made daily by PBOC to support and sustain its currency (yuan in this instance) through propping it up by manipulation (with whataboutism comments welcomed – whatever floats your boat!). For further exploration see: [http://informeurope.co.uk].
Central banks continue their aggressive push into global markets; European Central Bank Chief Economist Roberto Letta gave an interview to Spanish media, suggesting an imminent interest rate hike but without guarantee. Australian Central Bank Governor Philip Lowe similarly gave indications for such action and dropped strong hints towards June rate increases but failed to guarantee them.
Treasurer Chalmers recently hinted strongly at an impending budget surplus from his government this month, under increasing pressure to reduce fiscal stimulus given persistently high inflation levels, taking some strain off the RBA in turn. Our survey conducted revealed a private survey on inflation levels.
Australia today released inflation data showing it dribbling lower; with annual headline inflation at 3.7% marking two year low and core-trimmed mean inflation at 3.2% reaching its lowest since June of 2022; all major FX pairs apart from JPY holding small ranges for comparison purposes only.