Asia Summary and Highlights 6 May

Asia Session

The antipodeans are having their day as market participants cheer ahead of potential "great progress". Both equities and precious metals are higher, supporting the antipodeans strongly. Australia is reported to be building Aussie 10bn fuel reserve as Middle East crisis drives stockpile push, an act for future cushion of energy shock. AUD/USD is trading 0.86% higher at 0.7244. NZD/USD is trading 1.04% higher while USD/CAD slips 0.23% with both Brent and WTI lower. 

The USD/JPY dropped a figure in mins again. It looks like another intervention attempt from the MoF as such move is typical related. The Japanese FMs did already warned us of more intervention beforehand but there seems to be a change in magnitude. In previous intervention attempt, the MoF usually beat down the pair by around five figures. So far, we are only seeing a drop of around 2 figures in the past hour. USD/JPY is trading 1.68% lower at 155.22. Else, EUR/USD is up 0.37% and GBP/USD 0.38%.

European and North American sessions

The USD was not much changed overall, despite gains in USD/JPY to 157.90 from 157.25, with the USD edging lower elsewhere in the absence of fresh escalation in the Middle East. EUR/USD edged up to 1.17 from 1.1680 despite EUR/GBP and EUR/CHF being marginally lower. USD/CAD was little changed but AUD/USD rebounded to 0.7190 after dipping to 0.7140.

US data was not far from expectations, but consistent with an economy continuing to growth moderately. March’s trade deficit increased to $60.3bn from $57.8bn but with gains in both exports and imports. New home sales saw gains in both February and March but without fully erasing a January decline, while March job openings saw a second straight fall but without erasing a strong rise in January. April’s ISM non-manufacturing index saw a modest dip to 53.7 from 54.0. Canada recorded its first trade surplus since September supported by higher export prices.