ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: White House says scaling back April 2 tariff plan

the
market-moving news early on Monday here in Asia (late on Sunday
afternoon US time) was that the White house said April 2 tariff plans
are being trimmed:

Scales
back April 2 tariff plan, focuses on targeted reciprocal levies
Sectoral
tariffs on cars, chips, pharma
unlikely to be announced April 2
Reciprocal
tariffs still set to hit top trading partners including ‘Dirty 15’
(China,
the EU, Mexico, Vietnam, Ireland, Germany, Taiwan, Japan, South
Korea, Canada, India, Thailand, Italy, Switzerland, and Malaysia, if
you were wondering)

The
Wall Street Journal carried the report. The USD began to weaken soon
after. It was when Globex reopened for the week, though, with gaps
higher for US equity index futures, that FX accelerated. AUD was a
notable beneficiary, but EUR, GBP, NZD and CAD all gained. There
have been retracements since.

USD/JPY
traded higher, towards, but not hitting, 150. As the yen lost ground
we had some comments from Japan’s Finance Minister Kato, Bank of
Japan Deputy Governor Uchida, and Bank of Japan Governor Ueda that
have seen the yen stabilise weaker on the session.

We
had preliminary PMIs for March today from Australia and Japan, all
weakening from February.

The
People’s Bank of China set its reference rate for USD/CNY at the
weakest (for CNY) since January 20.

This is the ES (its a CFD that tracks ES) showing the opening gap for beginning of the week trade on the tariff ‘narrowing’ news. Gaps do tend to fill, so be wary.

—

In regional political news, South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who was impeached late last year for his actions following the martial law imposition, had his impeachment overturned in a 7-1 vote by South Korea’s Constitutional Court today.

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