Forex and Bitcoin news for Asia trading Thursday 22 February 2018

The yen gained sharply in Asia today - not by a huge amount but notable nonetheless. I won't repeat the post here, but there were various intertwined reasons surrounding yields, FOMC, positioning and more:

And check this out too:

Abe adviser Hamada was back on the 'BOJ should buy foreign bonds' train again today - USD/JPY fell as his comments hit! (This should be a yen negative ... but, no cigar for Hamada today).

USD/JPY fell (briefly) to below 107.20 before recovering a little (as I update). Yen crosses fell alongside, EUR/JPY down to beneath (again briefly) 131.60.

Other currencies are all little changed against the USD, it was a yen move. News and data flow was very light today.

The People's Bank of China (and the rest of China) was back today from the week-long break for Lunar New Year holidays. The Bank injected a hefty 360bn yuan via OMOs today, but beneath the surface its little more than treading water with that amount in the ballpark of RRS maturing this week. I suspect we will get further liquidity injection through OMO this week, or other facilities.

Still to come