Forex news for Asia trading
for Tuesday
2
February 2021
The
price of Silver eased lower in futures trade following the 18% rise
in maintenance margin announced by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The chatter of Wall Street bets folks said to be seeking a squeeze
similar to the operation on GME stock is beginning to fade as the reality of a market approximately 200 times bigger than
GME,
and without significant hedge fund short interest (not to mention
open short interest that can expand), bites.
After
the silver news we had a round of positives for risk, from Moderna to
squeeze more vaccine shots into bottles to boost vaccination efforts,
US stimulus talks progress, China
indicated it wanted a more constructive and stable relationship with
the US, and the PBOC injected funds (there is more on this later in the
wrap). Risk responded with gains for equities and a
dip for the USD. EUR, AUD, NZD, GBP, CAD all higher.
Later
in the session, the Reserve Bank of Australia announced the results of
its first monetary policy board meeting for 2021, leaving rates unchanged
and boosting its QE program beyond the previously-scheduled mid-April
expiry of the programme. The Australian dollar did, however, give back
over half its session gain (as I post) – there was some subtle AUD
jawboning in the statement.
The
People’s Bank of China injected funds for liquidity to the banking
sector again today and interbank lending rates eased back. Further
liquidity is expected to be added as we approach the Lunar New Year
holiday (which begins at the end of next week), helping to
dissipate
the
liquidity squeeze.
China
reported the lowest number of coronavirus cases on the mainland in a
month.
