Aussie dollar gains with China stocks margin lending curbs are relaxed
Talking Points:
• Canadian, NZ Dollars fall as Yen gains amid risk aversion in Asia trade
• Aussie Dollar gains with China stocks margin lendingcurbs are relaxed
• Fed-speak in focus as markets digest last week’s FOMC rate decision
The sentiment-linked Canadian and New Zealand Dollars are underperforming in overnight trade while the anti-risk Euro and Japanese Yen are trading higher as most Asian stock exchanges edged lower. The regional benchmark MSCI Asia Pacific equity index excluding Japan – where markets are closed for a holiday today – inched down in a move that looked corrective after prices hit a year-to-date high on the back of last week’s FOMC rate decision. Fed officials downgraded their projected rate hike path to imply two 25bps increases in 2016, down from four envisioned in December.
Chinese shares ignored the downbeat mood, rising after regulators loosed limits on short-term margin lending for stock trades. China Securities Finance Corporation, a state-sponsored entity that offers margin funding to brokerages, said it will resume offering capital for periods of 7 to 182 days. It will also cut interest rates to as low as 3 percent. Policymakers scrambled to curb margin-based speculation after sharp selloffs last year. The Australian Dollar – a frequently-used proxy for trading China-related news-flow – rallied alongside the Shanghai Composite stock index, erasing losses sustained earlier in the session and diverging from performance elsewhere in the commodity currency bloc.
Looking ahead, Fed-speak headlines an otherwise quiet economic calendar. Comments from Jeffrey Lacker and Dennis Lockhart, Presidents of the Richmond and Atlanta branches of the US central bank, are due to cross the wires. Both were members of last year’s FOMC and established the hawkish outlook calling for 100bps in 2016 rate hikes that the current policy-setting committee backed away from last week. Traders will be keen to hear how the two officials see the dovish shift and what that might imply about the critical variables impacting Fed policy in late 2015 versus today.
