USD/JPY Is Above 133.30, GBP/USD Droped Form $1.21 to $1.20, The Aussie Pair Is Trading Below $0.69
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The dollar rose on Wednesday amid stubbornly high US inflation data and sharp interest rate talks from Federal Reserve officials. Year on year prices increased (CPI) by 6.4%. This is down from 6.5% in December, but above economists' expectations of 6.2%. The Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.4% as expected. More importantly, the underlying details of the report revealed that the core services' inflation, which the Fed pays close attention to, stood at 7.2% on a yearly basis. These figures showed markets that the disinflation has not picked up any steam in January and reminded that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to entertain the idea of a policy pivot.
USD/JPY
Kazuo Ueda, the Japanese government's nominee to be the next governor of the Bank of Japan (BoJ), will inherit a difficult set of problems when he takes over from incumbent Haruhiko Kuroda on April 8. Japanese inflation y/y reached 4% in December, the highest level since January 1991.
The new central banker will have to decide when and by how much the BoJ needs to start reducing its very loose monetary policy in order to keep inflation in check while allowing enough monetary slack to allow for economic growth. As other countries have recently learned, once inflation takes root, it becomes increasingly difficult to bring it down.
The yen pair after yesterday closed trading near 133.00 today in the first hours of trading USD/JPY started a decline towards 132.55. The drop in the first hours of trading was not sustained and the pair rose above 133.00. At the time of writing, the yen pair is trading at 133.31.
EUR/USD
The EUR/USD pair started the day trading above 1.0740 but fell towards 1.0710 in the following hours. EUR/USD gained momentum in the European session and traded near 1.0730 but lost momentum and is now trading around 1.0715.
According to ING, remarks by European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde later probably won't move the euro materially. EUR/USD pair should remain driven by dollar moves and faces near-term "downside risks" as the market raised its U.S. interest rate expectations following Tuesday's higher-than-expected inflation data.
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GBP/USD
The British pound fell this morning after the UK CPI. The report showed weaker than expected inflation data, both y/y and m/m, concerning headline and core inflation, respectively.
The UK's Office for National Statistics reported on Wednesday that the Consumer Price Index declined 0.6% on a monthly basis in January, causing the annual rate to retreat to 10.1% from 10.5%. The Core CPI also edged lower to 5.8% from 6.3% on a yearly basis, coming in lower than the market expectation of 6.2%. Although it's too early to say how these figures could influence the Bank of England's (BoE) policy outlook, the reaction suggests that markets have scaled back hawkish BoE bets.
The Cable pair started trading at a high of 1.2175 on Wednesday, but in the following hours it started to fall initially to 1.2150 and then to 1.2100. Currently, GBP/USD is below 1.2100, at 1.2076.
AUD/USD
The Aussie pair is just below 0.6900.
The AUD/USD pair is under strong selling pressure on Wednesday and is pulling further back from its over-week high.
The RBA's latest monetary policy statement showed the central bank revised its inflation forecast for this year higher, saying price pressures were spreading to services and wages.
The communiqué suggests two more interest rate hikes in the coming months and possibly a third if inflation remains high.
Source: investing.com, finance.yahoo.com
