ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: Gold, BTC up

• Federal Reserve Board Governor Michelle Bowman speaking Friday
• Just over half of economists surveyed expect the Bank of Japan to hike rates in December
• European Central Bank President Lagarde, plus Nagel & Schnabel (& others) speaking Friday
• Swiss National Bank Chairman of the Governing Board, Martin Schlegel, speaking Friday
• Trump Considers Warsh Serving as Treasury Secretary—and Then Fed Chair
• Goldman Sachs sees Brent price upside risks in short term, medium-term skewed to downside
• NZD has a quick drop
• PBOC says will prevent ‘one sided’ expectations on yuan
• RBA first cut forecasts from Australia’s 4 biggest banks
• US Senator says Federal Reserve should sell some of its gold reserves to buy bitcoin
• UBS – British pound faces dollar dominance amid inflation and BoE rate cut
• PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 7.1942 (vs. estimate at 7.2502)
• Singapore official says trade tariffs could renew inflationary pressures, disrupt easing
• Japan preliminary November manufacturing PMI 49.0 (prior 49.2)
• USD/JPY dropped back to 154.00 (under) after above target CPI data and stimulus pack news
• Japan PM Ishiba says stimulus package will be around 39 trln yen
• Singapore Q3 GDP +5.4% y/y (expected +4.6%, preliminary 4.1%)
• Deutsche Bank: Fed unlikely to cut aggressively (strong growth, persistent inflation)
• Japan October headline CPI +2.3% (expected +2.2%, prior 2.5%)
• UBS published their highest conviction investment ideas for next year – falling USD is one
• Australian economy – household income has collapsed back to 2009 levels
• ICYMI – SEC Chair Gensler to Depart Agency on January 20
• Deutsche Bank: EUR/USD could fall below parity, potentially reaching 0.95 or even lower.
• Australia preliminary manufacturing PMI November 49.4 (October was 47.3)
• Reports that 2 ambulances and vans full of U.S. Secret Service leave Mar-a-Lago
• Forexlive Americas FX news wrap 21 Nov: BTC stalls just short of 100K.EURUSD new ’24 low.
• Citadel’s Griffin: US does not have space to cut taxes, warns on tariff crony capitalism
• US stocks close higher on the day
• Trade ideas thread – Friday, 22 November, insightful charts, technical analysis, ideas

Gold
and Bitcoin remained bid during Asia time. Gold traded to highs above
US$2690 briefly while BTC/USD traded above US$99K.

The
data focus for the session was on Japanese inflation for October. All
three of the main measures are sitting above the Bank of Japan 2%
target, further fuelling expectations of a Bank of Japan rate hike at
its December 18-19 meeting.

Just
prior to posting the latest Reuters survey of economists showed 56%
expect a hike, so its not an overwhelming majority by any means.

USD/JPY
dropped lower after the data, to briefly under 154.00 (just barely).
The drop was helped along by Prime Minister Ishiba saying the latest
economic package would be around 39 trillion yen, about 253bn USD
equivalent.

A
little after USD/JPY had hits lows we got a reminder that the economy
remains shaky, with the November preliminary PMIs mixed:

• Manufacturing
  49.0 (October was 49.4)
• Services
  a little more encouraging at 50.2 (vs. October 49.7)
• Composite
  49.8 (October 49.6)

NZD/USD
fell to 0.5830. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand meet next week with a
50bp rate cut fully priced in to the market. After the meeting next
week, November 27, the Bank does not meet again until February 19.
This is fuelling a 30% pricing of a 75bp rate cut next week. AUD/NZD
hit its highest today since October 2022, with a still-hawkish
Reserve Bank of Australia expected to be on hold until February (ANZ
and CBA tipping a cut then) or even May (NAB and Westpac tip a May
cut).

The
People’s Bank of China propped up the onshore yuan again today,
setting the USD/CNY reference rate circa 550 points lower than the model estimate.
The Bank also said it’d

• prevent
  the formation of one-sided expectations on the yuan,
• keep
  the yuan basically stable at a reasonable and balanced level.

Q3
Singapore GDP growth came in smashing estimates at 5.4% y/y vs. 4.6%
expected.

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