Yesterday, the Federal Reserve's dovish stance sparked a dollar sell-off, which persisted into the Asian trading session before profit-taking emerged. In the G10 currency basket, there was a mixed performance observed ahead of the North American market open.
Notably, gold surged to a new record high today, nearly reaching $2221. This significant increase comes after flirting with $2150 at the end of last week and earlier this week. However, May WTI experienced a slight softening, consolidating its pullback from this week's five-month high, slightly above $83.

Asia Pacific
In Japan, the trade balance for February showed improvement from January, continuing the trend seen in previous years. The trade deficit narrowed to JPY3795 billion from JPY1.76 trillion in January. Japan is set to report its national CPI figures for February tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Australia's employment report exceeded expectations significantly, with the creation of 116,000 new jobs last month—nearly three times more than anticipated.

The Federal Reserve's actions successfully countered the dollar's surge against the yen, as it was turned down from the JPY151.80 area, falling slightly through JPY150.75 in North America yesterday, and further to almost JPY150.25 today.
Responding to the Federal Reserve, the Australian dollar rallied to new session highs, reaching $0.6585, before pulling back to around $0.6600 in Europe.

Europe
Two European G10 central banks, Norway and the Swiss National Bank, have already held their meetings. As expected, Norway's Norges Bank maintained its deposit rate at 4.5%. Conversely, the Swiss National Bank became the first G10 central bank to cut rates, reducing its deposit rate to 1.50% from 1.75%.
Additionally, the EMU flash PMI indicated that while manufacturing remains depressed, services are experiencing slow growth.

The euro responded strongly to the Fed's stance, reaching nearly $1.0925, a four-day high in North America yesterday, with follow-through buying pushing it to around $1.0945 today.

America
The updated Summary of Economic Projections revealed a revision in this year's growth forecast to 2.1% from 1.4%. Despite this upward revision, the Fed signaled that three rate cuts would be appropriate, similar to December's indications, albeit with a reduction in the anticipated 2025 cuts from four to three.

In currency markets, the US dollar peaked for Q1 24 near CAD1.3615 on Tuesday before tumbling to almost CAD1.3480 yesterday. Notably, the CAD1.3600 level has proven to be a significant resistance point.