ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: Awaiting Powell speech

• ECB speakers on Tuesday include Schnabel, de Guindos and President Lagarde
• Increasing speculation of a PBOC RRR cut this month or next
• Japan finance minister Suzuki make some yen comments
• Federal Reserve Chair Powell is speaking on Tuesday
• RBA – a material rise in inflation expectations could require significantly higher rates
• PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 7.1291 (vs. estimate at 7.2774)
• KiwiBank “sticking to our call for cuts to begin in November” – “avoid economic scarring”
• “Leaning towards forecasting a hike at the RBA August meeting”
• Vanguard jumps on board – saying the risk is USD/JPY rises to 170
• US President Biden says no one is above the law
• Australian inflation expections have jumped their highest in 9 months
• ICYMI – Fed’s Williams says confident the Fed on a path to sustainable 2% inflation goal
• UK shop price inflation in June rose at the lowest rate since October 2021
• South Korean June CPI +0.2% m/m (expected +0.1%) +2.4% y/y (expected +2.7%)
• New Zealand Building Permits (May 2024) -1.7% m/m (prior -1.9%)
• US President Biden is scheduled to speak at 7.45pm US Eastern time
• French election – seems less likely that one group will have a majority after second round
• New Zealand Q2 business confidence collapses further, to -44% (prior -25%)
• WSJ on rising US yields, cite “potential Republican sweep in November”
• Forexlive Americas FX news wrap 1 Jul; US yields continue to rise w/longer end up the most
• JP Morgan with a warning note on US stocks – see a potential reversal
• Legal action against Roaring Kitty of GameStop for securities fraud has been dismissed
• ICYMI – comments from ECB’s Wunsch & Simkus – 2 interest rate cuts are easy
• NASDAQ index off to a strong start. Closes at a record level.
• Trade ideas thread – Tuesday, 2 July, insightful charts, technical analysis, ideas

We
had data from New Zealand today for Q2 business confidence, which
cascaded lower again. The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research
(NZIER) Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion has shown net pessimism
for business confidence since Q3 of 2021 and that continued. NZD/USD
lost a little more ground on the session after larger losses on
Monday with the rising US dollar.

AUD/USD dribbled lower also.
Reserve Bank of Australia minutes pointed to the importance of
official Q2 inflation data, due on July 31, for the next policy
meeting on August 5 and 6. A rate hike is not out of the question,
but we await the data.

From
South Korea we had the June CPI report, with y/y inflation in the
month at its lowest since July last year.

As
the headline to this wrap notes, Powell is speaking Tuesday, at the
ECB forum. He is due at 1330 GMT / 0930 US Eastern time.

Oil prices remained firm:

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