Asia Summary and Highlights 3 May
USD/JPY rotates lower
Asia Session
Nothing changes sentiment more than price. After two BoJ intervention, short term dip buyers seems to be taking a break as the week comes to an end. USD/JPY have dropped below the session low after Wednesday intervention at 153 and is testing lower. There will be a press conference from Suzuki and Ueda coming up and there maybe more verbal intervention and confirmation of earlier intervention. However, USD/JPY longs will be on their toes for fear of stop being hit in illiquid hours and seems to have kept speculators away for now. Both the U.S. Treasury and JGB yields are higher and USD/JPY has slipped 0.44% to 152.88.
Chinese and Japanese market are closed, Hong Kong equity indexes are in the green while U.S. three major equity indexes are performing individually. The Australian Service PMI are in solid expansion and continues the health of Australian economy. AUD/USD is benefiting from broad weakness and is trading 0.21% higher at 0.6580, NZD/USD also 0.21% higher at 0.5974 while USD/CAD is down 0.08% as oil up ten cents. Else, EUR/USD is up 0.08% and GBP/USD is up 0.1%.
North American session
The USD saw some early gains, primarily versus the European currencies, after a stronger than expected 4.7% rise in Q1 US unit labor costs and lower than expected initial jobless claims, unchanged at 208k. However the spike in UST yields on the data was not sustained, with focus remaining on the less than hawkish FOMC tone from Wednesday. The USD ended weaker across the board.
EUR/USD rebounded to 1.0730 from a low of 1.0674 and GBP/USD rebounded to 1.2540 from a low of 1.2472. USD/JPY saw no response to the data and fell steadily lower through the session, falling over a big figure to near 153. With equities stronger the commodity currencies were firm, AUD/USD up 40 pips to .6570 and USD/CAD down 40 pips to 1.3675, despite an unexpected move in deficit from the Canadian trade balance.