00:00 China Bank holiday
01:30 Australia Home Loans April +5.2% +2.1% +0.8%
01:30 Australia National Australia Bank's Business Confidence May -2 -1
03:00 Japan BoJ Interest Rate Decision 0.10% 0.10% 0.10%
03:00 Japan BoJ Monetary Policy Statement
The Japanese currency snapped a two-day decline against the dollar as the BOJ refrained from extending the maturity of loans to banks. The BOJ kept unchanged its plan for a 60 trillion yen ($611 billion) to 70 trillion yen annual increase in monetary base, the central bank said after a two-day meeting today. Twenty of 23 analysts in a Bloomberg News survey either forecast that the BOJ would approve two-year or longer loan operations at the policy meeting or said that such a move was possible. The yield on Japan's benchmark 10-year note rose five basis points to 0.875 percent. It has swung from an all-time low of 0.315 percent to as much as 1 percent since the BOJ announced in April a plan to double monthly bond purchases to more than 7 trillion yen.
Australia's dollar slid for a third day as the nation's statistics bureau said April home-loan approvals rose 0.8 percent, versus the 2 percent advance estimated by economists and a revised 4.8 percent gain in March. "Housing is the one area most likely to make up for the mining investment downturn, and it's disappointed," said Joseph Capurso, a Sydney-based foreign-exchange strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. (CBA) "You've got to say that the Aussie's going to keep on falling."
EUR / USD: during the Asian session the pair rose to $ 1.3290
GBP / USD: during the Asian session the pair rose to $ 1.5600
USD / JPY: during the Asian session the pair fell to Y97.75
Tuesday's calendar gets
underway in Tokyo, with a news conference from BOJ Governor
Haruhiko Kuroda in the wake of the BOJ decision to leave policy
unchanged. The briefing should get underway at 0630GMT. At 0800GMT,
ECB Governing Council member Erkki Liikanen will brief the press on
the economy, in Helsinki. Also at 0800GMT, the German
Constitutional Court begins hearing arguments over ESM/ECB, in
Karlsruhe - no outcome is expected until the Autumn. At 1000GMT,
the EU Commission will unveil proposals on extending the automatic
exchange of tax information to all income sources. Also at 1000GMT,
Slovenian President, Borut Pahor, will address the European
Parliament, in Strasbourg, France. At 1315GMT, Eurogroup President
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and EU
Economics and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn are to meet
in the Hague.