The lead into the Asia session:
Forexlive Americas FX news wrap: ECB warns on rising inflation
USD/JPY traded higher early in
the session here but stalled once it made a fresh high for 2022. The
following hours saw it stabilise just under 116.30 and as I post its
now staging a renewed push even higher. Bank of Japan comments today
were along the lines of no reason to have anything but its loose
monetary policy. This came in the hour before the renewed leg higher.
China’s
Premier Li spoke at length in a media conference today. He
spoke
on China stimulus to come. This confirms widespread expectations for
more in markets. China is battling enormous property market debt, a
surging COVID-19 outbreak (above 1000 new cases reported today – for
yesterday – for the first time 2 years) and associated ‘strict’
COVID-zero polices, and a weakening external sector as Russia’s war
in Ukraine weighs.
Coming
up on Friday, US President Biden will announce that, along with the
European Union and the Group of Seven countries, the US will move to
revoke “most favoured nation” trade status for Russia over its
invasion of Ukraine (this from unnamed sources but its not going to be wrong). Biden will speak at 10.15am Washington time (1515 GMT). Also
coming up on Friday, Russia has called a meeting of the UN Security
Council to discuss “military biological activities” in Ukraine.
Analysts expect this fake narrative is laying the groundwork for
Russian use of WMDs in Ukraine. Indeed, satellite imagery is showing
Russian forces pulling back a little from the town of Sumy (see
bullets above).
Russia attacked another nuclear facility in Ukraine (see bullets above).
Also
today EU leaders said yes to Ukrainian
inclusion
in the EU (at least to get the process started with EU leadership
support).
EUR/USD,
cable were basically flat on the session. AUD, NZD, CAD lost ground.