Market Musing, Asia Pacific

The wild ride in the JPY over the past few trading sessions has got the markets attention, and raised the question of whether Japanese authorities have (finally) intervened after firing several verbal warning shots? USD/JPY traded in a 3.6% range on Monday, around 4 times its historical norm, as it quickly plunged from a fresh multi-decade peak just above 160 before settling down (now ~156.70). Officials from Japan have kept markets guessing by not confirming or denying whether any action took place. But as the saying goes “if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it...

Some central bank action in today’s Asian session with the RBA and Bank of Japan meeting. The former had a bit of wordplay in its post meeting statement, while the latter finally relented and took steps to normalise its ultra-loose policy stance. Although market participants appear underwhelmed with the BoJ’s actions. The resultant lift in USD/JPY has flowed through and exerted downward pressure on the AUD. In terms of the RBA, as expected interest rates remained at 4.35%. In its view, while there are “encouraging signs” inflation is coming down it “remains high” and “the economic outlook remains uncertain”. As...