Looking ahead for a moment. Friday is a holiday across much of the Western world. Not so in Japan and China. China may very well cut rates. Check thes
Looking ahead for a moment. Friday is a holiday across much of the Western world. Not so in Japan and China. China may very well cut rates. Check these out:
The last time the People’s Bank of China cut the RRR was December 2021, by 50 bp. This happened 3 days after Premier Li said “cut RRR at an appropriate time”. Friday may very well the next one.
Back to today!
Thursday brought a surprise rate hike from the Bank of Korea, South Korea’s central bank. A 25bp increase (not 50 like the RBNZ and BoC on Wednesday). Singapore also tightened monetary policy. Singapore’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore manage monetary policy via adjustments to exchange rate levers. See the post above for more detail but in a nutshell the MAS re-centred the SGD band and raised the policy slope (slope of appreciation for the SGD). For the first time since 2010.
SGD rose on the announcement:
Also from the timezone today were employment figures from Australia, for March 2022. The headlines were misses but it was not a bad jobs report. Australia is at, or close to, full employment so wage growth should be stronger, if its not already. Speculation is increasing of an RBA rate hike in May but June is still the consensus.
AUD/USD is little net changed on the session. NZD/USD has risen, after its drop following the Reserve Bank of New Zealand 50bp rate hike on Wednesday.
USD/JPY swung around, dropping 40 or points in morning trade before recovering. As I post though its back on approach to its session low.
EUR, GBP, CAD all gained a little against the USD.
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