Fed comments puncture mood, India gives rate steer

April 5 – A late and steep reversal on Wall Street on Thursday, sparked by comments from a US Fed official that interest rates may not be cut this year, appears to be souring the mood across Asia on Friday, despite a decline in the dollar and US bond yields.

The S&P 500 had been well in the green for most of Thursday but ended up clocking its biggest loss in nearly two months after Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari’s remarks.

Asian stocks, however, have been pretty resilient lately. They may have lagged benchmark US, Japanese, and world indices on the upside this year, but it’s been two months since the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index last fell three days in a row.

Geopolitics may also be weighing on stocks and supporting bonds. President Joe Biden on Thursday threatened to change Washington’s policy towards Israel if it fails to protect aid workers and civilians in Gaza.

There are several potentially market-moving events in Friday’s regional calendar, including inflation data from the Philippines and Thailand, Australian trade, Japanese household consumption, and the Reserve Bank of India’s policy meeting.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is also in China for a series of meetings with top Chinese economic officials over the coming days, with trade tensions at the heart of them.

Yellen is expected to say that the flood of Chinese goods onto global markets is too much for the world to absorb, and stress that this is unhealthy for China too. It remains to be seen how receptive Beijing is to her concerns.

China’s exchange rate continues to attract attention. The offshore dollar/yuan has traded above the upper limit of the central bank’s daily band for 10 days, while the onshore dollar/yuan is creeping up towards it.

The gap that widened sharply 10 days ago is narrowing, but is still noticeable.

An eerie calm has descended on the yen, with traders still on Japanese intervention alert.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda signaled that the central bank could raise rates again if exchange-rate moves push up inflation, the Asahi newspaper reported.

The main calendar event in Asia on Friday is the Reserve Bank of India’s policy decision. All 56 economists in a Reuters poll expect the repo rate to be kept unchanged at 6.50%.

There is less consensus on when the first cut will come, with nine of 52 saying next quarter, 24 picking the third quarter, 17 saying the fourth quarter, and the rest expecting it at a later time. .

Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, confident of winning a national election starting this month, has set an ambitious target of roughly doubling the economy and exports this decade, according to a government document seen by Reuters.

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

– India central bank policy meeting

– Thailand inflation (March)

– The Philippines inflation (March)

(By Jamie McGeever)