Asia Summary and Highlights 14 Mar

Asia Session

Market participants' view on BoJ policy change continue to be caught between the March and April meeting. Nikkei reported that the BoJ will discuss ending negative interest rates in March's meeting with MUFG is forecasting the Bank of Japan to begin to tighten policy next week. Former BoJ official Hideo says once Bank abandons negative rate further moves will come very slowly, seems to be dampening market sentiment.  USD/JPY continue to consolidate within Tuesday range and is trading 0.12% higher at 147.93.

U.S. Treasury Yields are higher across the curve and the equity space is broadly positive. Regional sentiment is soft with HSI down half a percent. AUD/USD dragged 0.08% lower at 0.6616, NZD/USD up 0.06% to 0.6160 while USD/CAD rose 0.03%. Else, EUR/USD and GBP/USD are down 0.05% 

North American session

The USD was generally weaker through the North American session, though a late recovery saw he USD close with only marginal losses. 

There was no significant data but a healthy 30 year auction saw yields briefly drop and the USD saw a noticeable dip in response, USD/JPY briefly touching below 147.50 before correcting while EUR/USD saw a high of 1.0964, slightly outperforming GBP/USD, which saw little change.  A 30 pip dip in USD/CAD to 1.3640 came earlier, with oil firmer, and CAD held its gains better than JPY or EUR.