USD gains, Middle East fighting intensifies

Forex news for Asia trading on
Wednesday
12 May
2021

The
fighting in the Middle East (Israel / Gaza) intensified with barrages
of rocket attacks. Asia FX seemed as if it wanted to sit it out
awaiting the US CPI data (due at 1230GMT today) but the geo-political
events saw the USD gain across the major board. Escalation beyond
Israel / Gaza has not been indicated yet but its something to keep an
eye out for. As I post a statement from Israel says terrorist leaders from
the Hamas military intelligence system were targeted and killed. With
any luck the fighting has thus peaked, but of course, I am no expert.
Oil markets showed little response but the yen did weaken a touch
(admittedly intertwined with US dollar gains).

EUR,
AUD, NZD, GBP, CAD, yen and CHF all fell against the dollar.

Of
note for AUD traders, local bank CBA flagged that Australia might

lose its AAA sovereign debt rating:

• We
  think the rating remains on a very fine line, with a downgrade the
  more likely outcome.
• The
  economic situation is clearly improving quickly
• but
  the government has spent budget improvement on new stimulus

See bullets above for more on this. 

Regional
equities … there was no sign of the Bank of Japan buying
interest in the Topix. 

Japan’s
Nikkei -0.6%, Topix -0.9%
China’s
Shanghai Composite -0.04%
Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng 0.16%
Australia’s
S&P/ASX 200 -0.65%