The Thursday session in the US
timezone was dominated by the CPI data and the wild ride for markets
in its wake.
Follow
on moves during APAC trade were very limited but in general we have
had just a few more points added to USD strength. EUR, AUD, NZD are
all down very small.
The
local focus was on Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Lowe testifying
to a parliamentary committee. This went on for hours and there are a
good few posts in the bullets above with updates. The short story
though is probably best summarised by Lowe reiterating the policy
board has time on its side before deciding on any rate moves. Lowe
did concede that it is plausible that if the economy tracks to the
Bank’s forecasts a rate hike will be on the agenda later this year.
He added that he would like to see another ‘couple’ of CPIs
before deciding on moves. Official CPI data in Australia is only once
a quarter. The next release is due on April 27, the one after on July
27 (i.e. a ‘couple’ will take 5 months … Lowe may not get the
luxury of a couple).
The
Reserve Bank of New Zealand released its inflation expectations data
for the quarter. Most eyes were on the 5 and 10 year expectations.
These both came in under the mid-point of the Bank’s 2 to 3% target
range.
James Bullard got the ball rolling on Fed speculation of a 50bp hike in March – see the Nth Americas wrap, above, for links to his comments)