ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: A USD updraft session

• Bank of Japan Governor Ueda says Bank has limited room to support growth with rate cuts
• Australian May 2025 Business confidence +2, prior -1
• China vice president Han Zheng says ready to work with EU re China-EU relations
• PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 7.1840 (vs. estimate at 7.1853)
• More on Japanese Finance Minister Kato urging a variety of investors buy and own JGBs
• Australian Westpac Consumer Confidence for June 2025 rises 0.5% m/m to 92.6
• Japan fin min Kato says will conduct fiscal policy appropriately
• Goldman Sachs like US equities but note it’s a soft data vs. hard data battle
• US CPI data due Wednesday, core expected just under 3% y/y
• UK retail spending slows sharply in May as cost pressures weigh on households
• Japan’s LDP floats universal cash handouts to ease cost-of-living pressures
• Update: US – China trade talks will continue on Tuesday in London
• NZ Fin Min Willis wants to end the 3 month RBNZ summer holiday from policy meetings
• ICYMI: Citi also forecasts Fed interest rates higher for longer, see Sept cut (from July)
• Deutsche Bank warns of a higher for longer Fed rates, a growing risk to US borrowers
• Heads up – sixth round of nuclear talks between the US and Iran Friday or Sunday
• Morgan Stanley holds the line on Tesla, sees long-term upside despite political volatility
• Forexlive Americas FX news wrap 9 Jun: The USD moves modestly lower. Crude higher.
• US major indices close with modest changes
• ECB’s Holzmann says rate cut pause could last a while, data dependent
• Trade ideas thread – Tuesday, 10 June, insightful charts, technical analysis, ideas

The
USD gained ground on the session here with not a lot of fresh news
nor data. What we did see included:

• From
  the UK we had very weak retail sales, up 1% in May, the slowest rate of growth in 6 months, vs. +7% the month
  before,
• From
  Australia we had a weak business survey (National Australia Bank’s
  for May 2025) showing business conditions falling to a 4.5 year low
  and a lacklustre pick up for business confidence,
• From
  Bank of Japan Governor Ueda we had him once again saying he’d hike
  rates if inflation rises. However this headline misses what were
  troubling remarks from Ueda, reiterating that real
  rates remain negative as underlying inflation is
  still lagging
  under
  the Bank’s
  2% target.
• Meanwhile,
  Japanese Finance Minister Kato sounded a little desperate, urging
  domestic investors buy, and hold, Japanese Government Bonds.

More
on all these in the points above.

So
how did GBP, AUD and JPY all respond to this incoming information?
All fell against the USD. As did the kiwi $, CHF, CAD. It was a
session of broad US dollar strength.

Further
confounding the moves, local stocks rose, as did US equity index
futures on Globex. The lack of bad news out of US-China trade talks,
that’ll continue on Tuesday London time, was cited in narrative.

Bitcoin
traded above US$110K.

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.