Asian shares edged away from fresh seven-year highs on Friday

Good Morning,

- U.S. dollar trade under pressure, after US data and Fed’s official comments downbeats rate hike expectations. That helped the euro to climbing as high as $1.0818 yesterday despite rising concerns about Greece, last was just below to $1.08 level.

- Asian shares edged away from fresh seven-year highs on Friday as US data disappoints yesterday, but was still on track to score weekly gains.

- The dollar index last traded at 97.65. It had set a one-week low of 97.282 on Thursday and is down 1.7 percent so far this week.

- U.S. housing starts rose far less than expected in March and factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region grew modestly this month data showed on Thursday, suggesting the economic momentum will probably not be strong enough for the FED to decide to start raising interest rates as early as June.

- FED’s Lockhart, said the recent "murky" run of U.S. data has him leaning against a June interest rate hike. Lockhart quickly added he was confident the economy will remain on track.

- Also Comments from Fed’s Loretta Mester and Eric Rosengren also struck dovish tones.

- Greek PM Alexis Tsipras told Reuters on Thursday he was "firmly optimistic" his government would reach an agreement with its creditors by the end of April despite friction over issues such as pension and labor reform. The country's FM denied a report by the Financial Times that Athens had approached the IMF to request a delay in its loan repayments.

- Societe Generale on EUR/USD: "EUR/USD has cycles typically lasting either three or nine months. With the long drop in EUR/USD past us, we are likely headed for a three-month cycle. The next few months should hopefully confirm that the US slowdown was weather related, leaving the market to reprice the Fed’s path of tightening. A wider divergence in beliefs means volatile portfolio flows that typically last three months," SocGen notes. "Differing beliefs mean that one group of investors can offload to another without too much price impact. As the trend builds or collapses, beliefs become one sided, leading to a highly inelastic supply of risk, and cross-border portfolio flows therefore have a disproportionate impact on the exchange rate," SocGen adds. "Buying and selling at the extreme of the range should mean range trading in a wide band into the summer before a probable severe break out," SocGen projects.

- IMF Survey: Current growth in the global economy is simply not good enough to reduce high unemployment, bolster middle-class incomes, and drive poverty reduction, IMF Director Christine Lagarde said. Lagarde noted that the IMF’s updated forecasts project the global economy to grow this year at 3.5 percent—about the same rate as last year—and to grow slightly faster at 3.8 percent next year.

- Japan's consumer confidence improved for the fourth straight month in March, surpassing expectations, survey data from the Cabinet Office showed Friday. The consumer confidence index rose to 41.7 in March from 40.9 in the previous month. Economists had expected the index to increase to 41.3. The latest reading was the highest since December 2013, when it marked the same 41.7.

- Oil prices tumbled in Asian trading, giving back the sharp gains made overnight on news that a tribal group made up of former Al Qaeda militants took control of a major southern oil terminal in Yemen.

- Watch today: UK jobs, US March CPI, US consumer sentiment.

Have a nice Day!