CIBC

FX Flows

US$ firmed against most currencies over the morning, $YEN led the way and rose to 133.205. Surprisingly, we hear nothing from the Japanese officials about the $YEN level. Activity slowed into late morning, the pair then slowly drifted back onto 132-handle. Finalised first quarter GDP was revised to -0.5% from -1.0%. Nothing worth mentioning in terms of option strikes.

Both AU$ and NZ$ off the morning’s high but no hoo-ha. Some players are still licking wounds following RBA’s surprised hike of 50 bps. The Guardian reported Westpac and CBA are among the banks to predict the Reserve Bank will follow up with another 50 bps increase when its board next meets on July 5. Ex-RBA Governor Macfarlane said 50 bps hike by RBA yesterday was right call. That didn’t alter the sentiment, AU$ and NZ$ moved lower. Intraday support comes in at 0.7175, weak stops below 0.7141. Small option strikes at 0.7200 due in coming days.

Is risk to NZ$ on the downside? Positioning from leveraged names don’t suggest so. These accounts are long but not sizeable as yet. 50% retracement of the recent move is 0.6396. That could attract breakout artists. NZ$ put strike at 0.65 due today for N$760mio while little distant 0.6315 for N$1.06bn.

Not much to talk about the EUR$, lower on back of US$ story. No change from my view, we are stuck within retracement levels 1.0620-1.0787 until tomorrow’s ECB meeting.

Bank of Thailand meets today and will likely hold off on raising borrowing costs, making it an outlier among peers who have prioritized fighting high inflation over supporting economic growth. This will make Thailand among only a handful of nations that have bucked the Fed-led global tightening cycle. $THB peaked 34.51, I still believe we will run into some resistance close to 34.50, stronger at 34.55.

Citi

European Open

A fairly quiet session save for oil markets which saw volatility late in NY. Asia session saw dollar bid, with UST yields up slightly. High beta G10 currencies led the decline, although we note that JPY continued to slip on rate differentials. Equity markets were down slightly, although HSI tech shares rallied on the back of hopes of a better business outlook. RBI hiked repo rate by 50bps to 4.9%, compared to the consensus of 40 bps. However, we note that this was actually a slight dovish lean, given the unusually wide distribution of outcomes in the estimate. We flag that overnight, we learned that CNB will announce three nominees sometime today.

Aside from the CNB nominee announcement, we will look to German IP data for EUR. THB and PLN will eye rate decisions, with Citi Economics expecting the former to maintain, and the latter to hike rates by 75bp hike to 6.00%. RON sees GDP prints and TWD looks to trade balance. HUF, BRL and CLP will look to CPI figures to guide them.