It was a very light session indeed for news and data, and we didn’t hear much from central banks either. An exception was the Hong Kong Monetary Auth
It
was a very light session indeed for news and data, and we didn’t
hear much from central banks either. An exception was the Hong Kong
Monetary Authority (which serves as Hong Kong’s central bank). The
HKMA intervened to support the HK dollar, which has fallen to the
weak end of its permitted trading band (more on this info and what
the band is in the relevant bullet point above).
Major
FX rates have traded in subdued ranges and there is not a lot of net
change on the session to report. EUR/JPY and yen crosses generally
are higher, but ranges are small only.
Asian
equity markets have
traded mixed following a weak lead from Wall Street. Fed officials on
Tuesday gave mixed messages, Atlanta Federal Reserve President
Raphael Bostic indicated he saw one more rate hike of 25 basis
points, before pausing to see its impact on the economy. This would
take the Fed Funds rate to a range of 5% to 5.25%. St. Louis Federal
Reserve President James Bullard was more hawkish, saying he was in
favour of a higher terminal rate between 5.50% and 5.75%. There
are more Fed speakers on the agenda ahead (Goolsbee and Williams) –
I’ll have a post up soon on expected timings for these.
Asian
equity markets:
-
Japan’s
Nikkei 225 -0.24% -
China’s
Shanghai Composite -0.23% -
Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng -0.51% -
South
Korea’s KOSPI +0.1% -
Australia’s
S&P/ASX 200 +0.18%
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