Forex and Bitcoin news for Asia trading Tuesday 13 November 2018

We had some forex movement in Asia today. Currencies initially continued their US time move (generally stronger for the USD) before US/China trade news reversed the direction.

Early on news came out that US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin had spoken to his counterpart in China on Friday to defuse trade tensions ahead of the meeting between Presidents Xi and Trump coming up at the end of the month. A few hours later HK press reported that Chinese vice-premier Liu He is expected to visit the US for trade talks. This may well be some sort of short-term fix ahead of the summit, but I could be wrong. Maybe everything is hunky dory (you can probably tell I reckon its just a short-term fix). Do keep in mind that US President Trump has shown little sign of backing off on his approach to trade. Indeed, during the US afternoon there was news he has called a meeting for Tuesday on auto tariffs.

Anyway, the 'risk' markets liked it. Market favourite China proxy, the Australian dollar, got a good kick higher, from circa 0.7180 it moved towards 0.7210 (and above). NZD, CAD, EUR, GBP all gained against the US dollar also.

USD/JPY, of course, after having slipped a little in morning trade caught a bid, from lows around 113.60 it traded back above (just a little) 114.

China stock markets recovered some of their losses:

  • Nikkei -2.34% (had been down more than 3%)
  • Shanghai +0.11%
  • HK -0.10%
  • ASX -1.74%

Also today, the PBOC intervened to support the onshore yuan ahead of 7 on USD/CNY. Major Chinese State banks were the sellers of USD/CNY. Some liquidity action from the Bank too, driving up borrowing costs for CNH in Hong Kong, overnight rates to their highest in around 5 weeks.

Still to come: