Asia Summary and Highlights 11 Jun

Asia Session

Headlines crossed the wire that geopolitical tension between Iran and Israel persists and as later reported that U.S. and Iran will meet on Sunday for nuclear talks. The uncertainty in geopolitics seems to be driving haven bids as we see JPY and Gold gain the most on Thursday's Asia USD weakness. USD/JPY is trading 0.5% lower at 143.8 with both the U.S. Treasury and JGB yields falling. 

The broad risk sentiment is sour on Thursday's Asia session with geopolitical tension arise. U.S. three major equity indexes and regional equities are all in the red, except Chinese equities.  AUD/USD is trading 0.02% higher at 0.6502 after touching a session low of 0.6484, NZD/USD is trading 0.14% higher at 0.6036 while USD/CAD slides 0.14%. Else, EUR/USD is up 0.32% and GBP/US up 0.29%.

European and North American sessions

After a quiet European morning the USD fell sharply on a softer than expected US May CPI, up only 0.1% in both the headline and core rates. The initial knee-jerk move took USD/JPY down around a big figure to a low of 144.33 and EUR/USD to near 1.1490 from 1.1435. The USD saw a subsequent attempt to recover, with the EUR relatively resilient while USD/JPY and AUD/USD got close to pre-CPI levels.  

With UST yields remaining lower, particularly after a decent 10-year auction, and equities unimpressed by US-China trade progress, a weak USD tone later resumed, with EUR/USD peaking at 1.15 while USD/JPY found support just above the earlier low. AUD/USD however ended weaker, touching below .65 while USD/CAD losses were modest. While GBP/USD advanced to 1.3540 EUR/GBP was firm around .8480 with UK Chancellor Reeves’ spending review having little market impact.