ForexLive Asia Wrap: USD/JPY Looks at 100, Fails to Get there Again

The forex trading headlines for Asia trading today Reminder: the BOJ will ‘brief and exchange views with financial institutions and institutional investors on last week's monetary easing and the outlook for market operations' at 4pm Tokyo time (0700GMT) Fed's Fisher: Fed has had a serious discussion about when and under what conditions to taper bond buys Japan March M2 money stock 3.0% y/y (2.9% prior and 2.9% expected ) Japan March M3 money stock 2.5 y/y (2.4% prior and 2.4% expected) Japan March Domestic CGPI 0.1% m/m (Corporate Goods price Index) (0.4% prior and 0.2% expected) Japan March Domestic CGPI -0.5% y/y (Corporate Goods price Index) (-0.1% prior and -0.4% expected) Japan February machine orders 7.5% m/m (-13.1% prior and 6.9% expected) Japan February machine orders -11.3% y/y (-9.7% prior and -7.6% expected) Japanese buying of foreign bonds -Y1144.bn (week ending April 5) (prior was -Y117.4bn) Japanese buying of foreign stocks Y6.3bn (week ending April 5) (prior was -Y71.8bn) Foreign buying of Japanese bonds Y463.6B (week ending April 5) (prior was Y747.8bn) Foreign buying of Japanese stocks Y868.6bn (week ending April 5) (prior was Y228.1bn) Australia March employment data: -36,100 (vs. +74,000 prior and -7,500 expected) Australia March Unemployment 5.6% (vs. 5.4% prior and 5.4% expected) Australia employment data: Participation rate at 65.1 (vs. 65.3% prior and 65.2% expected) (In summary, Australian employment data release today was dreadful and has prompted many bank economists to predict further RBA easing in Q2 or Q3, as long as inflation remains within the target zone) Australia: Melbourne Institute Inflation Expectations for April 2.2% (vs. prior of 2.3%) New Zealand: ANZ Truckometer index -2.7% in March (prior was +0.3%) New Zealand: BNZ March manufacturing PMI 53.4 (vs. 56.3 prior) New Zealand: March house price index +2.4% m/m New Zealand finance minister English: If house price inflation stays at current rate it will cause higher interest rates Bank of Korea left its key interest rate at 2.75%, unchanged It wasn't a busy Asian session, but there were a few movements to speak of: EUR/USD lost a little ground and USD/JPY came lower - some EUR/JPY selling obviously helping in the drift down. Bids around 1.3050 held the decline, though. USD/JPY had a look up towards 100 in the pre-Tokyo morning, but the intensity of the offering interest kept it below 99.90 and it subsequently fell as low as 99.35/40 in the afternoon. The earlier data releases (see bullets, above) had very little impact, much of these are old data that predate the game-changing April 4 announcement from the BOJ). NZD/USD stabilized around 0.8580 in a tight range today. AUD/USD had some movement after the employment data release (it was tightly range-bound ahead of the figures at 1.0535/45). The results saw AUD as low as 1.0500/05 before bouncing to 1.0515/20. It steadily drifted back to 1.0500 to find bids again. The employment figures were dreadful, but they came after a huge upside surprise last month. it is a volatile data series and this should be borne in mind, but the broad weakness seen today is a real concern and has prompted some bank economists to continue calls for a further RBA rate cut in the 3rd or 4th quarter.