ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: Fed’s Waller not in a rush to cut rates | Forexlive

Waller:

Other:

The
main event of the session were comments in a speech and following Q&A
from Federal Reserve Board Governor Christopher Waller. His remarks
were nuanced but leant towards holding rates higher for longer
(delaying the first rate cut) and indicative of fewer rate cuts this
year than have been indicated earlier. We’ve heard the same
recently from Bostic and Kashkari.

Waller’s
remarks sent the US dollar higher across the major FX board. As I
post, though, those moves have been fully retraced.

USD/JPY
was a bit of a laggard, but it did rise eventually to above 151.50.
It too has subsequently retraced, back down to earlier levels around
151.25 or so. We have had just one comment from a Japanese official
cross the wires to support the yen today, so far at least. Japan’s
chief cabinet secretary Hayashi said he won’t rule out any option
against excessive FX moves.

Also
from Japan was the ‘Summary’ of the historic Bank of Japan last
week when rates were raised for the first time in 17 years. From the
Summary a key takeaway is that this was a tentative step and further
tightening will be slow to come.

The
People’s Bank of China set the reference rate for the onshore yuan
more than 1300 pips stronger than estimated (for CNY) again today.

Note,
it’s a holiday across much of Asia tomorrow, Good Friday, 29 March
2024:

New
Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore are all out

Japan
and mainland China will be open. There is inflation data coming from
Japan during tomorrow’s session (Tokyo area, a leading indicator of
nationwide inflation). ForexLive will be in to cover this, and more.