Forex news for Asia trading Wednesday 22 November 2017

A few wiggles around the FX space.

USD/JPY slid a little during the Tokyo morning, losing 25 or so points and weighing on yen crosses. As I update its hitting session lows below 112.20 and below its US time low on Tuesday.

Reuters carried a report earlier on regarding 'early signs' from the Bank of Japan of reducing policy accommodation. It was a mild report only, there is certainly nothing imminent. In geopolitical news, North Korea featured, with comments from the UN Command on site in South Korea re a North Korean soldier crossing the military demarcation line (MDL), a violation of the armistice agreement that has paused the Korean War since 1953. The soldier crossed last week in pursuit of a defector.

  • "The key findings of the special investigation team are that the KPA violated the Armistice Agreement by one, firing weapons across the MDL, and two, by actually crossing the MDL temporarily," U.S. Army Col. Chad Carroll, UNC's public affairs chief, said at a briefing. (via Yonhap, South Korean media)

Also, news on the next supplementary budget and the Cabinet perhaps to cut CPI and GDP forecasts in December (see bullets above).

Having said all this, moves the yen have not been large.

EUR/USD is little net changed on the session, as is USD/CHF. There has been no fresh news nor data to shift either. Cable is up a few points (20-odd) on the session, again without much in the way to provide fresh impetus - it looks like Brexit talks will be moving to phase 2 in December (see bullet above) .

Australian data was a huge headline blowout on Construction Work Done for Q3, but as explained multiple times both before during and after the release, the impact on Q3 GDP is negligible. Nevertheless, AUD/USD popped (albeit just a few points), to a fresh high compared with its overnight top. It quickly gave it back and is barely off it session low as I post. NZD/USD moved higher alongside the AUD and has given back ground also to be barely changed on the session (down a touch).

Oil has been a mover here in Asia. It spurted higher a bit on the regular Tuesday afternoon private inventory data out of the US and never looked back.

On the US - Janet Yellen spoke (see bullets above) and there also appeared to be some potential movement on tax (see bulletsabove)
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There is plenty still to come, I popped up some previews earlier:

And ... Federal Open Market Committee: