ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: USD extended its gains

• Japan Finance Minister Suzuki: Continues to watch FX moves with high sense of urgency
• Federal Reserve Chair Powell headlines Fed speakers Friday, also Jefferson, Barr, Bostic
• China state banks seen buying yuan in onshore FX market
• Bank of Japan Governor Ueda says BOJ JGB holdings will remain at current levels for now
• ECB chief economist Philip Lane is speaking on inflation and monetary policy on Friday
• Fitch Ratings says Australian mortgage arrears at highest since the pandemic began
• PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 7.1004 (vs. estimate at 7.2147 )
• Japan finance minister Suzuki verbal intervention again
• Vitol is seeing increased demand for oil from shipping and also from aviation
• UK data – GfK Consumer Confidence for March -21 (vs. expected -19 & prior -21)
• Japan February headline CPI 2.8% vs. 2.2% in January
• Wall Street Journal says China Xi to meet US CEOs in Beijing next week – a “Rare meeting”
• Here’s a $90K Bitcoin forecast – halving, ETF flows cited
• Former Goldman Sachs commodities head “I want to be long oil”
• BlackRock CEO Fink says Japan stocks have ‘more upside’ amid weak yen
• US Treasury Sec Yellen says sees few real challenges to the dollar as reserve currency
• New Zealand February trade data shows exports and imports both climbing from January
• South Korea wholesale inflation (PPI) for February +0.3% m/m (prior +0.5%)
• Forexlive Americas FX news wrap for Feb 21: US dollar closes higher on higher yields/data
• Note for the diary – Federal Reserve Chair Powell to speak on March 29
• Swiss National Bank rate cut has undermined the CHF, demoted to funding currency of choice
• US stock market close: Record closes but early enthusiasm sags
• Trade ideas thread – Friday, 22 March, insightful charts, technical analysis, ideas

The
US dollar strengthened further here today, with only the JPY and CHF
putting up much of a fight. Of course, both of these two had been hit
hard before today, with the Swiss franc plunging on Thursday after
the Swiss National Bank cut interest rates and the yen plunging when
the Bank of Japan did the opposite and raised interest rates! The key
difference between the two impacts was the SNB cut came as a surprise
to markets while the BOJ move was very, very well telegraphed.

USD/CHF
has, so far, topped out around 0.8992 and USD/JPY around 151.85.

Elsewhere
in major FX the USD has hit EUR, AUD, NZD, GBP and CAD all lower. The
Chinese yuan is a stand out loser, though, with onshore (CNY) and
offshore(CNH) losing around 200 points or so. Chinese state banks
have been spotted intervening in an effort to try to support the
onshore yuan, selling USD/CNY. Mainland and Hong Kong equity markets
fell.

In
data flow today the notable item was Japanese February CPI, which
came in mainly higher than in January (see bullets above). New
Zealand trade data for February reported a smaller trade deficit than
in January (again, see bullets above).

Bank
of Japan Governor Ueda spoke, but didn’t really remark on the
currency like Suzuki did.

USD/offshore
yuan shook off USD/CNY intervention:

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