ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: USD/JPY pops above 133.00

The
US day drew to a close with the release of the private survey of oil
stocks (inventory), showing a headline build where a draw was
expected. The oil price has done relatively little after that data.
The official government survey of stocks will be published Wednesday
morning, US time.

We
had very little fresh news of note crossing, and not a lot of data
either. Japanese economic growth for Q1 came not as bad as it had in
the preliminary figures for that quarter released a


f
ew
weeks prior. Japan’s economy


contracted
0.5% y/y in the


January-March



quarter:

• private consumption
  
  
  held
  up
  
• 
  firms
  built inventory
  
• 
  on
  the negative side, business capex fell
  

USD/JPY
found a tailwind, again, rising above 133.00 today. It has not
carried on much higher though. As I update its testing slightly back
under the figure. There have been, so far at least, no comments out
of Japanese authorities on the yen.

Some
small US dollar strength was evident across other major FX. EUR, GBP,
AUD, NZD, CAD and CHF all slipped a little. Ranges have been small
though and as I post there is some retracement of these small moves
going on for little net move mainly. USD/CHF is up a touch off its
lows though.

Chinese
tech stocks rose, helped along by an easing back of the tech
crackdown (this yesterday, for example):

USD/JPY: