European Summary and Highlights 09 Feb

European morning session

A quiet European morning saw little net change in the major currencies. EUR/USD edged a little lower after initial gains, while USD/JPY returned to opening levels after early strength. AUD/USD was around 15 pips firmer after opening below 0.65, while the CHF was the weakest currency, with EUR/CHF rising around 10 pips on the session to 0.9430.

The NOK was the strongest currency n the session, with EUR/NOK dropping around 5 figures to trade below 11.40 after a slightly stronger than expected December Norwegian CPI numbers, with the core y/y rate dropping to 5.3% against consensus of 5.2%.

Asia session

Following Uchida's remark on Thursday, Ueda also speak in front of the parliament saying chances are high of accommodative conditions to stay, another "dovish" headline literally. Japan Chief Cabinet Secretary Hayashi tried to walk back the impact by stating the comment remains the same in the December one. While market participants who keep a close eye will release it is not really a dovish tilt, broad market participants are leaning towards the "dovishness" and see JPY further weakens on Friday despite JGB yields outperform U.S. T-yields. USD/JPY is trading 0.1% higher at 149.44, inching closer to 150 figure.

ANZ are expecting the RBNZ to hike its cash rate in February and in April, to 6%. The coming RBNZ meeting on Feb 28 should see them keeping rates on hold as we have not seen a revision in inflation nor OCR forecast from previous RBNZ meeting, nor spike in latest inflation data. NZD/USD jumped 0.4% to 0.6121, AUD/USD is unchanged for the session with the Chinese equity market closed to observe the Lunar New Year, while USD/CAD rose 0.05% as oil slips 30 cents. Elsewhere, EUR/USD is down 0.06% and GBP/USD is down 0.02%.