Asia Summary and Highlights 25 Sep
Makoto Sakura Says The BOJ may act in October
Asia Session
Ex-BoJ member Makoto Sakura Says The BOJ may act in October. He is not the first ex board member to say so and echoes our call for an October hike. USD/JPY is trading 0.16% lower at 148.66 with JGB outperform U.S. Treasury yields.
There seems to be little decisiveness in the broad equity market on Thursday as major equity indexes are ending the Asia session close to unchanged. Nikkei and HSI is leading while Chinese equity indexes lags but both with a small magnitude. AUD/USD is trading 0.13% higher at 0.6519, NZD/USD is trading 0.12% higher at 0.5820 while USD/CAD is unchanged. Else, EUR/USD is up 0.05% and GBP/USD is up 0.07%.
North American session
The USD gains in the European morning extended in North America, mostly before a sharply above consensus 20.5% rise in August new home sales to 800k was released. EUR/USD fell to 1.1735 from 1.1765 and USD/JPY advanced to 148.85 from 148.30. EUR/JPY rose to 174.70 from 174.50 but the EUR was weaker versus GBP and CHF, even with USD making gains against both. USD/CAD reached 1.39.