BOJ reassurance fades, defences still up

Asian assets are in for a rocky ride on Thursday after soothing words from the Bank of Japan’s deputy governor about recent yen volatility were overtaken by a negative turn in US markets, a reminder that market conditions remain challenging.

Wednesday’s US session saw the dollar, bond yields and stock market volatility rise and Wall Street fall. Amongst all, that was a weak USD 42 billion auction of 10-year Treasury bonds.

The auction was a big disappointment. Its ‘tail’ – how much higher the yield at sale was relative to where it traded before – was a massive 3 basis points, and demand was 2.32 times the amount of debt on offer, the weakest since December 2022.

Also, bear in mind that MSCI’s benchmark Asian and emerging market stock indexes chalked up strong gains on Wednesday of 1.8% and 1.9%, respectively, their best performance in two months. They may struggle to maintain much momentum on Thursday.

There is a decent sprinkling of regional event risk in Asia with Philippines GDP, Japanese current account, Taiwan trade numbers and a Reserve Bank of India policy decision all on tap.

The BOJ also releases the summary of opinions from its instantly historic July 30-31 policy meeting that some analysts say contributed to the current market turbulence.

Investors are still mulling BOJ Deputy Governor Shinichi Uchida’s remarks on Wednesday that the central bank won’t raise interest rates when financial markets are unstable, and that recent market turbulence is “clearly a downside risk to the economy.”

This helped lift the Nikkei and slammed the yen – in late US trading the currency was down 1.8% against the dollar for its biggest daily fall in 18 months.

Implied yen volatility eased a little on Wednesday but remains elevated across the curve. The wild gyrations of the last few days may have passed, but traders are understandably maintaining a cautious and defensive stance.

One-week volatility is notably higher than one-month volatility, an indication that investors still expect quite a bit of churn in the yen in the coming days.

India’s central bank is widely expected to hold rates steady at 6.50% for a ninth straight meeting, but investors are hoping for a more dovish tone that could open the door for an October rate cut.

At this juncture, an October cut seems unlikely. Current money market pricing attaches roughly a one-in-five chance of a cut in October and suggests a quarter-point rate cut is only fully priced by February next year.

Taiwan’s July trade figures, meanwhile, will be closely scrutinized for clues on the strength of AI-related demand for microchips. Exports in June soared 23.5% from a year earlier thanks to “strong business opportunities in new technology applications”, the finance ministry said then.

Here are key developments that could provide more direction to Asian markets on Thursday:

– India interest rate decision

– Taiwan trade (July)

– BOJ summary of opinions

(Reporting by Jamie McGeever)