Asia Open - Overnight Highlights

EMERGING ASIA

EM currencies perform mostly stronger against the USD as USD fell early, dragged by JPY strength. MYR saw the largest gain of 0.59%, followed by THB 0.51%, KRW 0.17%, CNY 0.13%, CNH 0.11%, PHP 0.05%, SGD 0.04% and INR 0.02%; the biggest losers are IDR by 0.19% HKD 0.02% and TWD 0.01%..

USD/CNH is trading lower at 7.2075 compared to the 7.2141 at previously closed. Onshore spot USD/CNY is trading lower at 7.1886 from 7.1980 previously closed. 12 month NDF diverged from both the on/offshore market and is trading higher at 7.0070 compared to 7.0057 previously closed.

USD/IDR spot market is trading higher at 15719 from 15692 previously closed. 1 month NDF is trading lower at 15714 from 15728 previously closed.

USD/INR onshore spot market is trading lower at 82.91 from 82.93. 1 month NDF is trading lower at 83.01 from 83.04 previously closed.

NA Session

European currencies lost ground through the North American session. EUR/USD dipped back to see lows below 1.08, dropping around 40 pips, while USD/JPY was net little changed near 150 having dropped around 80 pips to 149.20 early in the session. The USD initially fell back across the board after a modest rise in jobless claims data helped to push yields lower, but recovered by the end of the session. The jobless claims was released at the same time as a 0.4% rise in core PCE prices, which while significantly firmer than recent trend was on consensus. A 0.2% rise in personal spending was also on consensus and while a 1.0% rise in personal income was stronger than expected, disposable income was restrained to a 0.3% increase by higher tax payments.

The USD fell against the CAD from near 1.36 to below 1.3550 after modestly better than expected Canadian GDP data but corrected over half of the move late in the session. Canada’s Q4 GDP increase of 1.0% annualized was stronger than expected, and Q3 was revised up to -0.5% from -1.1%, meaning the drop has been more than fully reversed. However the details of the Q4 data fail to impress, with a decline in domestic demand and a weaker than expected unchanged outcome for December, though preliminary signals for January are positive.