Forexlive Asia-pacific FX news wrap: Gold climbs to a three-week high, nears record

• BOJ’s Ueda: Underlying inflation is still somewhat below 2%
• Japan fin min Kato: Japan still not in a state where we can call end to deflation
• UK February RICS housing survey balance at +11 vs +20 expected
• Mark Carney will be sworn in as Canadian Prime Minister on Friday
• “Bank of Japan officials see several reasons against intervening in the bond market”
• Here’s a forecast for the Bank of Canada to cut rates to 2.25% by June
• Michelle Bowman will be the new Federal Reserve Vice-Chair For Supervision
• Canada’s Minister of Exports Ng says tariffs violate the US’ obligations under USMCA FTA
• Bank of Canada Governor Macklem expects damage from tariffs, hence today’s rate cut

Markets:

• Gold up $13 to $2946
• US 10-year yields down 2 bps to 4.29%
• WTI crude oil flat at $67.64
• S&P 500 futures down 0.3%
• JPY leads, CAD lags
• Nikkei +0.5%

The mood started out positive following the better Wall Street close on a lower-than-expected CPI. The Australian and New Zealand dollars got early bumps of around a dozen pips but the gains didn’t last. As Tokyo ramped up the mood slowly soured, though not to concerning levels. US stock futures fell into negative territory and the antipodeans gave back gains.

There were no headlines that impacted anything, though Japanese officials expressed some cautious optimism about a slow exit from deflation. USD/JPY traded tight to 148.20 in the latter half of the US session and has stayed there, though is under some modest pressure at the moment and yields dip.

The one notable move so far is in gold, which is up $13 to the highest since Feb 24 and in its third day of gains. It’s now just $10 from the February record high and that likely reflects the unceasing noise around US tariffs and retaliation.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.