Asia Summary and Highlights 11 April

Asia Session

USD is broadly soft on Friday, along with risk asset. The DXY has fallen to level last seen in July 2023 as U.S. Treasury yields trades lower for the session. USD/JPY tried to challenge the 142 figure by touching a session low at 142.86 before retracing partial losses to trade 0.85% lower at 143.2.

Major equity indexes has rebounded from their session low. In the earlier Asia session, U.S. equities were taking another dive as market participants are spooked by the potentially worsening of U.S. economy. But as session progress, sentiment turns calm with major U.S. equity indexes close to unchanged while regional equities in Chinese and HK in the green, Japanese equities continue to bleed. AUD/USD is trading 0.66% lower at 0.6183, NZD/USD is trading 0.47% higher at 0.5767 while USD/CAD slips 0.09%. Else, EUR/USD is up 0.65% and GBP/USD is up 0.34%.

European and North American sessions

Equities struggled while not fully erasing the Wednesday bounce, given realization that significant tariffs and uncertainty persisted. A softer than expected US March CPI, -0.1% overall with a 0.1% increase ex food and energy had little impact. Fed talk from Logan, Schmid and Goolsbee was largely hawkish. A decent 30-year auction provided some relief though the curve still saw sharp pivotal steepening. 

The USD moved steadily lower in Europe and North America before a modest late correction. USD/JPY fell from 147 to test 144 while EUR/USD saw highs above 1.12 from below 1.10. EUR/GBP rebounded to .8630 from .8640 but EUR/CHF fell to .9230 from .9360. USD/CHF plunged to .8250 from .8550, while GBP/USD tested 1.30 from 1.2850. USD/CAD traded below 1.40 for the first time since early December while AUD/USD pushed above .62.