Forex news for Asia trading
Wednesday 12
August 2020
Overnight moves continued in
Asia today, most notably for precious metals with gold dropping
further, under USD1,900, as did silver, under $23.50 at one point.
Late US announcement of margin hikes weighed on less well funded
traders and contributed to the further declines here in Asia as did
Asian flows.
For
currencies the main focus was on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand
August monetary policy announcement. The Bank announced a larger than
expected boost to their asset purchase program (LSAP), to 100bn NZD
and issued a dovish statement alongside. We are yet to hear from
Governor Orr, his news conference is due at 0300GMT. The NZD was
marked lower after the policy decision was issued but has since, as
of updating, rebounded to the circa 0.6560s, where it was prior.
ICYMI, there has been plenty of news on the new NZ lockdown, the
country’s largest city of Auckland is back in level 3
restrictions (until at least Friday) while the rest of the country
is at L2. NZ has a general election scheduled for September 19 and as
yet Prime Minister Ardern has said a delay will not be necessary but
speculation is swirling.
While on central banks, the RBA bought 2bn AUD in government securities today as part of its YCC efforts. This is a relatively large purchase by the Bank.
AUD
fell a little, as did EUR, GBP, yen, CHF (all against the USD),
carrying on lower after their overnight weakness.
On
US stimulus negotiations, there were none. US political news centred
on presidential candidate Biden announcing his choice as
vice-president running mate California senator Kamala Harris.
What cutesy name will it be … JoKam? KamJo?