Session Recap: RBA Stevens steals the show to the Japanese

As written in the headline, the Asian session was dominated by one name, and that is RBA Governor Glenn Stevens, who today, after testifying before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics in Canberra, threw cold water to all the RBA cut calls, by sounding surprisingly less dovish-than-usual. He said a good deal of interest rate stimulus in pipeline, which is suggestive that rate cuts have been reduced enough for now.

The Aussie was empowered to top the climbers, while the Yen, which found little headlines to set a clear bias, ended as the main laggard. There was only one headline of note out of Tokyo, yet since it referred to the 'hot topic' of foreign bond buys, with BoJ candidate Mr. Iwata defending the idea to help prevent another global financial crisis, the Yen got marginally hurt.

Main Headlines in Asia (in chronological order)

- Wall Street closes lower on risk aversion

- China's monetary policy is shifting from supporting growth to controlling inflation - WSJ

- WSJ article: New Zealand Says Milk Is Free of Chemical

- Japan overnight press – The buying foreign bonds idea isn’t dead

- RBA Stevens strikes not so dovish tone; good deal of rate cuts in pipeline

- RBA Stevens: Easing more likely than tightening

- BOJ client survey points Mr. Kuroda as the most popular candidate - Nomura

- The RBNZ will not intervene - TDS

- China January new home price data release – prices fall in 10 cities (vs. in 8 in Decembner)

- New Zealand January credit card spending -2.5% m/m (vs. +1.0% prior)

- Steven’s comments on Yen are interesting

- Reuters article: Summary of RBA’s Stevens comments today

- Commodity Brief: Gold diverges to the upside

AUD/JPY: Seeing some quite heavy short-covering