Yen pares back some losses in Asian session as this week's consolidation continues. In Japan, Q1 GDP was finalized at 0.5% qoq, revised up from 0.4% qoq. GDP deflator was finalized at 0.9% yoy, unrevised. Current account surplus narrowed to JPY 2.04T in April. It's reported that BoJ policy makers are concerned with Yen's surge after weak NFP put June or even July Fed hike off the table. While BoJ doesn't target yen exchange rate explicitly, sharp appreciation in the currency would hurt corporate profits and affects the central bank's policy decisions. BoJ will meet again next week, right after FOMC, and it's widely expected to stand pat first. But there has been continuous speculations that the central bank would adopt additional easing should yen jump past recent high against dollar at 105.
The pound stays mixed as traders and investors are cautious ahead of the EU referendum on June 23. According to a UK government website, 226k people registered for voting on Monday, six times of the daily sign-up a week ago. That's probably because Tuesday was the last day for registration ahead of the referendum. Recent poll results showed that the vote will be a tight race in spite of all the efforts by prime minister David Cameron promoting to "stay". Cameron once again urged voters to "make this decision on the basis of facts and arguments" and accused the "Brexit" campaigners for fooling the public. UK industrial and manufacturing production will be key data to watch today but would likely not trigger lasting impacts on the markets.
In Eurozone, ECB governing council member Ewald Nowotny said that Eurozone has overcome the phase of "acute deflation danger" through the effort of the central bank. Belgium central bank head Jan Smets also indicated earlier this week that he didn't anticipate new stimulus after the "very important number of measures". However, another governing council member, head of Slovak central bank, Josef Makuch said that ECB could miss the inflation target until 2020. Makuch also noted that ECB is ready for all alternatives regarding the result of the EU referendum in UK.
Elsewhere, New Zealand manufacturing activity dropped -2.6% in Q1. Australia home loan rose 1.7% in April. Swiss CPI and UK productions will be the main feature in European session. Canada housing data will be released in US session.