ASIA SUMMARY

It was a wild Asian session after rumors swirled about the reason China’s delay of its GDP release due later today. Markets took the delay of the release as a sign of a potentially hotter than forecast number and that China may look to increase interest rates. Asia bought up JPY across the board as higher Chinese rates would be beneficial for the Japanese currency. EUR/USD which briefly traded to multi-year highs again, fell back below the 1.3600 handle with EUR/JPY.

Equity markets were also hit with the Nikkei and Shanghai Composite down 2% at one point. It looks like with both JPY crosses and equity markets lower, traders are looking to reduce risk because of the delay. It was not to long ago in February and March that we saw similar action in the market.

The volatility in Asia could carry into Europe as traders await the Chinese GDP release due at 3am EDT. While the focus will be on the JPY, expect movement in other pairs as well.

Upcoming Data Release (UK Session):

Germany: (2am EDT) Month over month producer prices expected .4% vs. previous .3%. (4am EDT) ECB’s Gonzalez-Paramo holds speech in Monterrey.

ECB: (4am EDT) ECB publishes April monthly report. (5:30am EDT) ECB’s Bini Smaghi holds speech in Budapest.

Switzerland: (5am EDT) ZEW Credit Suisse Release Swiss Investor Expectations Index. SNB publishes monthly statistical report for April.