- USDTHB: moving in the range 34.30-34.50 this morning
· SET Index: 1,593.1 (+1.01%), 10 April 2023
· S&P 500 Index: 4,109.1 (+0.10%), 10 April 2023
· Thai 10-year government bond yield (interpolated): 2.48 (+1.41 bps), 10 April 2023
· US 10-year treasury yield: 3.41 (+2.00 bps), 10 April 2023
- UK house-building falls by most since 2020 as interest rates bite
- Japan’s current account swings back to black on overseas investment
- China CPI inflation eases further in March, PPI shrinks
- Dollar gains on Fed rate hike bets, yen dips on Ueda comments
UK house-building falls by most since 2020 as interest rates bite British house-building fell at the sharpest pace since May 2020 last month as the cost of higher interest rates outweighed an easing in supply chain difficulties that bolstered other types of construction, according to a survey released on Thursday. The S&P Global/CIPS construction Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 50.7 in March after jumping to 54.6 in February, a bigger drop than the fall to 53.5 forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. Even so, the reading still indicated modest growth and was the second-highest since October, when the "mini-budget" crisis under former Prime Minister Liz Truss's government caused borrowing costs to leap. Hiring rose at the fastest rate since October, reflecting greater workloads and new projects, and expectations for future activity were the highest since February 2022.
Japan’s current account swings back to black on overseas investment Japan’s current account swung to a surplus in February, reflecting hefty returns on securities investments and easing some concerns about any weakening of the country’s purchasing power, after the previous month’s record deficit. The current account surplus stood at 2.1972 trillion yen ($16.59 billion) in February, smaller than a 2.5357 trillion-yen surplus forecast by a Reuters poll of 16 economists. That followed the prior month’s 1.9893 trillion-yen deficit, which was caused by effects of the Chinese New Year holidays in January. In February, a weak yen and rises in global interest rates helped drive the amount of primary income gains from Japanese investments overseas to a record amount, a MOF official said.
China CPI inflation eases further in March, PPI shrink Chinese consumer inflation read weaker than expected in March, while producer price inflation contracted at a steady pace amid growing signs that a post-COVID economic recovery in the country, especially in the manufacturing sector, was losing steam. China’s consumer price index (CPI) grew 0.7% in March, slower than expectations of 1%, as well as the prior month’s reading of 1%, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday. On a monthly basis, CPI inflation fell 0.3% in March from the prior month. The reading showed that consumer spending was still struggling to pick up despite the lifting of anti-COVID restrictions, as well as measures by the government to shore up spending. Consumer spending is a key driver of the Chinese economy and is yet to fully recover from the COVID pandemic, which had seen the country endure three years of lockdowns.
Dollar gains on Fed rate hike bets, yen dips on Ueda comments The 10-year government bond yield (interpolated) on the previous trading day was 2.48, +1.41 bps. The benchmark government bond yield (LB31DA) was 2.47, +2.00 bps. LB31DA could be between 2.20-2.70 Meantime, the latest closed US 10-year bond yields was 3.41, +2.00 bps. USDTHB on the previous trading day closed around 34.32 Moving in a range of 34.30-34.50 this morning. USDTHB could be closed between 34.00-34.50 today. The dollar firmed on Monday after Friday's solid jobs report boosted expectations for a U.S. interest rate hike in May, while the yen weakened as new Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda signaled no hurry to dial back its massive stimulus. U.S. employers hired at a strong pace in March, adding 236,000 jobs that pushed unemployment down to 3.5%, signaling labor market resilience that will keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise rates again next month. The dollar gained against the Japanese yen after Ueda said it was appropriate to maintain the BoJ's ultra-loose monetary policy for now as inflation has yet to hit 2% as a trend. The greenback was last up 1.12% at 133.615 yen, after hitting 133.87, the highest since March 15.
Sources : ttb analytics , Bloomberg, CNBC, Trading economics, Investing, CEIC
