ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: Freefallin’

Forex Short News

Markets
across Asia went into free fall on Monday, following the same on Wall
Street on Friday.

As
is always the case on Mondays, early FX trading, hours and hours
before equity futures open for trade, showed the way. In a 6am Sydney
time post (4pm US Eastern time Sunday) I noted USD/JPY was already
more than 100 points lower than its late Friday level. Weekend index
pricing, which is not based on exchange pricing but during events
like this can be very helpful, was showing gaps lower also.

US
equity indexes fell heavily upon Globex reopening, but have since
recovered some of their losses. Regional stocks here in Asia are
still heavy.

USD/JPY
traded to lows under 145.00 and then recovered somewhat to cover the
gap from Friday, trading to a high circa 146.75. Huge swings for the pair.

Other
major FX followed a similar patterns with minor variation, lower then
a gap cover. AUD/USD hit a 5-year low.

As
for news flow. US officials said more than 50 countries have
contacted the administration to seek trade/tariff talks. This
advertising was seen by the market as an attempt to prop up stocks.
It was countered by Trump speaking with media on his plane trip back
from a weekend of golfing saying on the stock market collapse that
sometimes it just has to take the medicine. Trump also said that he
would not make a deal with China until the trade deficit was solved.
No mention of fentanyl.

Crude
dropped under US$60.

Bitcoin
dropped under US$78K (other crypto slumped as well).

In
other news (see the points above for more detail):

  • Japanese
    real wages fell y/y again (February data),
  • the
    People’s Bank of China set the reference rate for CNY and the
    weakest, for yuan, since December 3 last year,
  • Chinese
    State Media, People’s Daily, said that China may have room for a
    Reserve Requirement Ratio (RRR) cut, and an interest rate cut,
  • Data
    from China showed the PBOC bought gold for reserves a fifth month in
    a row
  • JP
    Morgan and Goldman Sachs boosted up their chances of a US recession

USD/JPY covered its gap:

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.