Forex news for Asia trading on
Tuesday
18
May 2021
It
was a ‘risk on’ day for regional equities and for FX against the
USD. Markets more or less ignored comments from Federal Reserve
Dallas President Kaplan
who once again leaned towards an early discussion of Fed tapering.
News
flow on the whole was light, although we did receive an indication Yellen is to ask business to help foot the infrastructure bill in a speech on Tuesday (US time). Data flow centred on Japanese Q1 GDP
which showed contraction, as expected.
On the central bank front we had RBA May meeting minutes today, these did not add much to our understanding of where the Bank is at – they repeated again their expectation that rates would not rise until 2024 at the earliest. Interestingly though Deputy Governor Debelle is on record from his speech a couple of weeks ago indicating the Bank will be having regard to data more so than calendar guidance.
NZD
led the charge against the USD, leading the pack higher. GBP and CAD
made notable highs on the session, cable to its highest since late
February while CAD to its since May of 2015.
USD/JPY
was subdued.
Regional
equities:
-
Japan’s Nikkei +2.1%
-
China’s Shanghai Composite +0.03%
-
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng +1.2%
-
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200+0.44 %
Source: https://www.forexlive.com/news/!/forexlive-asia-fx-news-18-may-20210518
