Asia extends Friday’s positive mood

Positive trends remain in place

Asian markets were steady to firmer in muted, holiday-thinned trade due to the start of the week-long Japanese holidays. Equity markets took their cue from the positive close on Wall Street on Friday while currency markets showed mild risk-on tendencies.

AUD/USD climbed 0.23% to 0.7055 while AUD/JPY added 0.29% to 78.73. USD/JPY only managed gains of 0.05% to 111.60, just above the 200-day moving average at 111.50.

USD/JPY Daily Chart

Source: OANDA fxTrade

Next leg of US-China trade talks set to begin

US press reported that US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin was upbeat ahead of the next round of trade talks due to begin in Beijing tomorrow. He commented that negotiations with China were “in the final laps”, repeating similar comments made a couple of weeks ago.

EUR/USD edging higher after Spanish election

EUR/USD managed to eke out small gains as Spanish PM’s Socialists Party wins 123 seats with 97% of the votes counted. While he appears not to have the required majority of 176 seats, and will need to form a coalition government, the lack of a major political shift was seen as a positive. EUR/USD is up 0.12% at 1.1157.

EUR/USD Daily Chart

Source: OANDA fxTrade

Calm on the data front

It’s a relatively slow start to the week on the data front, but will gradually build up steam into the US non-farm payroll report on Friday,

Today we see numerous Euro-zone confidence indicators for April, ranging from consumer confidence to business climate to economic sentiment. Forecasts are suggesting either a steady or deteriorating bias. The US calendar features personal consumption expenditure price indices, both headline and core, and estimates are implying not much change from the previous month’s reading.