Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) previews:
Other
The
Australian and New Zealand dollars recovered some ground after their
falls on Tuesday. AUD/USD fared better, while NZD/USD has been
stymied ahead of 0.6200. Its currently just under there as I post and threatening to make a liar out of me.
There was basically no news of impact for either. A shipment of
Australian coal has arrived in China, but this was expected. There has
been some thawing in chilly Australia-China relations.
EUR/USD
barely moved. USD/JPY rallied to circa 132.75 before dipping back to
be little net changed on the session. GBP/USD is up a few points.
The
latest on the First Republic Bank rescue is there may be further
government support incoming to shore it up, more in the bullet point
above.
The
private survey of oil inventory we get each week, the day before the
official US government report, showed a large headline build against
the draw that was expected. The oil price is a little lower, the
survey result cited as the reasoning.
There
was no data of note.
Asian
equity markets:
-
Japan’s
Nikkei 225 +1.9% (Japan exchanges reopened after a holiday yesterday) -
China’s
Shanghai Composite +0.26% -
Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng +2.03% -
South
Korea’s KOSPI +0.85% -
Australia’s
S&P/ASX 200 +0.83%
The
Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement is due at 1800 GMT
today, 2pm US Eastern time. The consensus is for a 25bp rate hike,
but not unanimously. Goldman Sachs is in the “on hold” camp
saying financial stability concerns will trump inflation concerns at
this meeting:
- Overall,
the historical record suggests that the FOMC tends to avoid
tightening monetary policy in times of financial stress and prefers
to wait until the extent of the problem becomes clear, unless it is
confident that other policy tools will successfully contain financial
stability risks.
(more
in the bullet point above)
