ASIA FX: USD Weaker, USD/TWD Breaks Sub 30.00
In North East Asia FX markets, the bias has been for a weaker USD, consistent with recent themes. CNH moves so far today have been modest, but USD/CNH has still hit fresh year to date lows. USD/KRW has edged down, while USD/TWD has broken under 30.00. TWD Is up 0.50%, the best performer in this space.
- After gapping lower through Friday trade as Trump's EU tariff threat rattled US asset sentiment, the early morning announcement of a delay to July for the tariff hike hasn't provided any meaningful USD relief. USD/CNH was last near 7.1700 and tracking towards a test of the 7.1400 handle, which we last saw in Nov 2024. The USD/CNY fix was set above market expectations, but the actual fix was still lowered noticeably compared to Friday's outcome.
- Spot USD/KRW found support ahead of 1360, but the recent downtrend in the pair remains intact. We were last near 1365, little changed for the session. Again, downside interest is likely to rest near 1350 for this pair. The pair looks too low relative to US-SK 1y1y rate differentials, but other drivers around the sell American theme are more dominant at the moment.
- Spot USD/TWD has broken down through 30.00, for the first time since early May (we were last near 29.85, up around 0.50% in TWD terms). Downside focus is likely to be on 29.60/65 region, which marked lows in the pair back on May 5. The RSI (14) remains in significantly oversold territory, near 16, but with broader USD sentiment so weak, it isn't deterring downside momentum in the pair.
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US TSYS: Extraordinary Measures And Cash Look Sufficient To Head Off X-Date
Treasury has about $164B in "extraordinary measures" available as of April 23 to avoid hitting the debt limit, per its regular report out Friday. That's out of a maximum total of $375B (they have used $211B).
- With Treasury cash looking healthy (around $600B), that's a fair amount of dry powder to get through the summer months to wait out the debt limit impasse. Tax receipts have looked strong with tariff revenues also starting to boost cash flows, further reducing the near-term urgency to adjust bond issuance.
- This has also helped push back analyst “x-date” expectations to later in the summer/September. We expect to hear from Treasury about its own x-date assumptions next week.
US TSYS: Treasury Market Trading Stayed Orderly In April: Fed Report
Liquidity across financial markets including the Treasury market deteriorated after President Trump's April 2 reciprocal tariffs announcement but market functioning was generally orderly, according to the Federal Reserve's semiannual report on financial stability, released Friday. (PDF link is here)
- Treasury market liquidity has been poor for years and yields were particularly volatile in early April, contributing to a deterioration in market liquidity, the Fed said.
- Nevertheless "trading remained orderly, and markets continued to function without serious disruption," according to the report, which looked at information available as of April 11.
FED: Ex-Gov Warsh: Fed Has Failed To Satisfy Price Stability Remit
From our Washington Policy Team - Some fairly sharp words today from ex-Fed Governor Warsh on the central bank (who for what it's worth is seen by betting markets as by far the frontrunner for the next Fed Chair):
- The best way for the Federal Reserve to safeguard its independence is for policymakers to avoid expanding the institution's role over time, including wading into policy areas that are outside its core mission, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, a leading contender to replace Jerome Powell as chair next year, said Friday.
- "I strongly believe in the operational independence of monetary policy as a wise political economy decision. And I believe that Fed independence is chiefly up to the Fed," Warsh said in a speech at a Group of Thirty event on the sidelines of the IMF meetings. "Institutional drift has coincided with the Fed’s failure to satisfy an essential part of its statutory remit, price stability. It has also contributed to an explosion of federal spending." His speech made no mention of Trump's tariffs or the appropriate monetary policy to deal with them.
- He said the ideas of data dependence and forward guidance widely adopted by Fed officials are not especially useful and might even be counterproductive.
"We should care little about two numbers to the right of the decimal point in the latest government release. Breathlessly awaiting trailing data from stale national accounts -- subject to significant, subsequent revision -- is evidence of false precision and analytic complacency," he said.
"Near-term forecasting is another distracting Fed preoccupation. Economists are not immune to the frailties of human nature. Once policymakers reveal their economic forecast, they can become prisoners of their own words. Fed leaders would be well-served to skip opportunities to share their latest musings."
