European Summary and Highlights 13 Mar
The USD was generally fairly steady through the European morning, but gained around 30 pips against the JPY as equities edged slightly higher.
European morning session
The USD was generally fairly steady through the European morning, but gained around 30 pips against the JPY as equities edged slightly higher. USD/JPY touched 148, while EUR/USD was steady near 1.0930. EUR/SEK gained a couple of figures to 11.20, but otherwise there was little FX movement.
UK GDP data for January came in in line with expectations, rising 0.2% m/m following a 0.1% decline in December, but the 3m/3m rate was still negative at -0.1%, and the underlying trend remains at best flat. EUR/GBP was unchanged on the data but edged up around 5 pips to 0.8545 by the end of the morning
Asia session
After a week of consideration, Toyota has agreed to union wage hike demand. The union has requested the highest wage increase since 1999. The requested annual lump sum amount was equivalent to 7.6 months of standard wages and exceeds last year's request for 6.7 months. This is a good sign but another larget Japanese company, Okuma Corp, has disappointed union demand. Japan chief cabinet secretary Hayashi said it is important that wage rises spread to mid & small firms. It seems to suggest most officials are still waiting for the results of wage negotiation by the end of the week. So far, wage negotiations have exceeded expectations and is above BoJ's wage growth target of 2%. USD/JPY is trading 0.23% lower at 147.31.
U.S. Treasuries are performing individually across the curve while risk sentiment is broadly soft, expect for HSI. The antipodeans benefited the most from softer USD. AUD/USD is up 0.09% to 0.6612, NZD/USD up 0.17% to 0.6160 while USD/CAD rose 0.03% on slightly lower oil. Elsewhere, EUR/USD and GBP/USD is unchanged.