ANZAC Day

To all our readers from Australia and New Zealand, commemorating the dreadful loss of life in Gallipoli on 25th?April?1915,?and the bravery and sacrifice of all those extraordinary young men, please?know,?that we too will remember them.

JPY – BOJ intervention likely

Many in the markets are surprised that the Bank of Japan did not use the Australian and New Zealand ANZAC Day public holidays as an opportunity to intervene in the financial markets in support of the Japanese yen. The?GBP/JPY?exchange rate is up to JPY 194.38 this morning, the highest level we have seen since August 2015, and at JPY 155.65 the?USD/JPY?might reach a level not seen since early 1990. Whilst this is fantastic for making Japanese exports affordable for overseas buyers, it is stoking inflation within Japan?and?that's a worry for the Bank of Japan. We will see a measure of inflation in Tokyo?itself?when that data is released later this evening. For a nation that has seen?extraordinarily low?inflation for a very long time, the expected level of 2.7% is almost Vertigo inducing.?The markets are expecting some intervention at some point?although the?timing?of that?is pure speculation at this stage.?Nevertheless, these may be some of the most attractive rates for Yen buyers we are likely to see for some time.

USD steadies ahead of GDP data

The financial markets are a bit devoid of data today?but?that focus is the?largest?super trouper spotlight on the US economic growth data, due for release this afternoon. The dollar has retreated a little ahead of these numbers.?In the interbank market, the?GBP/USD?rate is?up to?nearly $1.25, a?full?two cents above?where it?was on Monday morning.?The?EUR/USD?rate bottomed out?10?days ago at $1.06 but has made a slightly more modest recovery to this morning's level of $1.0721.?The forecast for?today's preliminary gross domestic product growth is around 2.5%.?That would mean the annual?growth?in the year to?March,?would be the worst we've seen in nine months. The thinking then spins back to the US Federal Reserve?which?is watching softening data without showing a willingness to cut the cost of borrowing at an early stage. That is a concern for the markets?hence, the US dollar weakness.

Today's Major Economic Releases

07:00 EUR ECB's Schnabel speech

08:00 EUR Economic Bulletin

12:30 USD Core Personal Consumption Expenditures

12:30 USD Gross Domestic Product Annualized

12:30 USD Gross Domestic Product Price Index

12:30 USD Initial Jobless Claims

12:30 USD Personal Consumption Expenditures Prices

14:00 USD Pending Home Sales

15:15 EUR German Buba President Nagel speech

22:00 NZD ANZ – Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence

23:01 GBP GfK Consumer Confidence

23:30 JPY Tokyo Consumer Price Index

23:30 JPY Tokyo CPI ex Food, Energy

23:30 JPY Tokyo CPI ex Fresh Food

Interbank Exchange Rates