the market-moving news early on Monday here in Asia (late on Sunday afternoon US time) was that the White house said April 2 tariff plans are being trimmed:

  • Scales back April 2 tariff plan, focuses on targeted reciprocal levies
  • Sectoral tariffs on cars, chips, pharma unlikely to be announced April 2
  • Reciprocal tariffs still set to hit top trading partners including ‘Dirty 15’ (China, the EU, Mexico, Vietnam, Ireland, Germany, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Canada, India, Thailand, Italy, Switzerland, and Malaysia, if you were wondering)

The Wall Street Journal carried the report. The USD began to weaken soon after. It was when Globex reopened for the week, though, with gaps higher for US equity index futures, that FX accelerated. AUD was a notable beneficiary, but EUR, GBP, NZD and CAD all gained. There have been retracements since.

USD/JPY traded higher, towards, but not hitting, 150. As the yen lost ground we had some comments from Japan’s Finance Minister Kato, Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Uchida, and Bank of Japan Governor Ueda that have seen the yen stabilise weaker on the session.

We had preliminary PMIs for March today from Australia and Japan, all weakening from February.

The People’s Bank of China set its reference rate for USD/CNY at the weakest (for CNY) since January 20.

us equity index es futures wrap 24 March 2025 2

This is the ES (its a CFD that tracks ES) showing the opening gap for beginning of the week trade on the tariff 'narrowing' news. Gaps do tend to fill, so be wary.

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In regional political news, South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who was impeached late last year for his actions following the martial law imposition, had his impeachment overturned in a 7-1 vote by South Korea’s Constitutional Court today.

Source: Forex Live