Asian equities continue to ride of Greek optimism and are broadly higher today. That followed another day of rally in US equities where NASDAQ made another record at 5160.09, up 0.12%. DJIA and S&P 500 rose slightly 0.13% and 0.06% respectively. The greenback stays firm in Asian session too after yesterday's strong rebound. Dollar is supported by Federal Reserve governor Jerome Powell's upbeat comments. He expected strong growth in Q2 with "greater basis for confidence" for inflation to return to 2%. Meanwhile, he also saw 50% chance of a rate hike in September. He also projected another hike in December but that was less certain.
In Eurozone, Greece will remain the major focus. Eurozone finance ministers will meet for the third time in a week. Analysts are generally more optimistic on an eventual agreement for Greece and its international creditors after the country submitted a new set of proposals over the weekend. Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras will fly to Brussels to meet with ECB president Mario Draghi, IMF head Christine Lagarde and EC president Jean-Claude Juncker today. Greece needs to secure the bailout deal and get another tranche of funding to fulfil its payment of EUR 1.6b to IMF by the end of the month.
In UK, BoE policy maker Martin Weale said in a newspaper interview that the labor market is "sizzling away nicely". The movement in wage growth picked up "a bit faster" then he expected last autumn. He noted that the dropping oil price gave BoE some breathing space but this time was coming to an end. And he also indicated that he may soon vote for a rate hike in the MPC meetings.
In Japan, BoJ released the meeting minutes for May 21-22 meeting. The minutes noted that "Japan's economy is expected to continue recovering moderately". Also, "the year-on-year rate of increase in the CPI is likely to be about 0% for the time being, due to the effects of the decline in energy prices." And, "quantitative and qualitative monetary easing has been exerting its intended effects, and the Bank will continue with QQE, aiming to achieve the price stability target of 2%, as long as it is necessary for maintaining that target in a stable manner."
On the data front, Japan corporate service price rose 0.6% yoy in May. China conference board leading indicator rose 1.1% in May. Looking ahead, German Ifo business climate is the main focus in European session. Swiss will release UBS consumption indicator while UK will release BBA mortgage approvals. US will release Q1 GDP final revision.