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BOJ monetary policy meeting in April, highlights from the minutes 'Summary of Opinions' – members strongly uncertain on timing of when the pandemic will be contained and the impact on overseas and domestic economies 

Neel Kashkari is President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. via Reuters, the comments made at a closed event on Wednesday and released on Thursday (US times).  

<p>UK retail sales rose 12.0% mom in May while ex-fuel sales rose 10.2% mom. However, over the year, retail sales dropped -13.1% yoy while ex-fuel sales dropped -9.8% yoy. In quantity bought terms, fuel grew 2.7% mom. Non-store retailing grew 3.8%. Non-food stores grew 5.9%. Food stores dropped slightly by -0.2%. Full release here.</p>

<p>Preliminary data showed that Australia retail sales rose 16.3% mom in May. that’s the largest rise on 38 years of record. But that wasn’t enough to recover the record contraction of -17.7% mom in April. ABS said, “there were large rises for clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing and cafes, restaurants and tak

<p>In the last monthly report of Japan’s Cabinet Office, it’s noted that the economy remained in an “extremely severe situation” but it had “almost stopped worsening”. Private consumption is picking up. However, business investment is in a “weak tone”. Exports are “decreasing rapidly”

<p>Japan national CPI core (all items less fresh food) was unchanged at -0.2% yoy in May, worse than expectation of an improvement to -0.1% yoy. That’s also the second straight month of negative reading. Nevertheless, CPI core-core (all times less fresh food, energy) rose back to 0.4%, up from 0.2% yoy, which might be a […]

<p>UK Gfk consumer confidence rose 6 pts to -30 in June, hitting the highest level since March. That’s also the biggest improvement in nearly four years. Expectations on general economic situation over the next 12 months improved by 9 pts to -48, but stayed deeply negative. “We have seen queues as some shoppers return to […

<p>St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said yesterday that the he “definitely don’t think we’re out of the woods”, from the coronavirus crisis. The US is still at a high, high risk level here,” he warned, “Any crisis, I think you have to keep in mind that many things can happen – many twists and [&h

<p>The financial markets are generally treading water in Asian session today, with very limited movements. Yen, Swiss Franc and Dollar are the strongest ones for the weak so far. But there is not much committed buying seen yet. On the other hand, Sterling is the worst performing one for the week at this point, with […]

<p>USDCAD at this point seems it may prolong its sideways course, pursuing the 200-day simple moving average (SMA). The horizontal posture within the Ichimoku lines and the 200-day SMA further sponsor this view. The short-term oscillators further emphasize the pause in the market but lean towards a negative bias. The MACD, in the negative reg