Asian currencies were shackled on Thursday as investors pondered the impact on the dollar stemming from potential delays to US President Donald Trump's major tax reform plans. Those considerations, along with an absence of catalysts, kept most regional currencies subdued. The dollar hardly budged either, last fetching 94.926 versus a basket of six major currencies, up 0.1 percent on the day.
There was little "tier-1 data" to drive regional currencies, said Christopher Wong, senior FX strategist for Maybank. A US Senate tax-cut bill, differing from one in the House of Representatives, was expected to be unveiled on Thursday, complicating a Republican tax overhaul push and increasing scepticism on Wall Street about the effort.
Emerging Asian currencies will remain susceptible to the headlines on the US tax bill, said Qi Gao, Asia FX Strategist at Scotiabank in a report. The dollar stands to lose ground if the Senate tax bill delays plans to cut corporate taxes by one year, he said. The Indian rupee was supported by some dollar selling by exporters and IPO-related inflows, taking some pressure off the currency from higher oil prices.
Indian companies have raised about $8 billion from IPOs in India so far in what is set to be a record year. The recent HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co. Ltd's IPO will be the fourth to raise more than a billion dollars in 2017. So far this month, foreigners have bought about $700 million in Indian equity markets.
It was a different story for the Philippine peso, which was kept in check by corporate demand for dollars and stock sales by foreigners, traders said. On the policy front, central banks in Malaysia and the Philippines will meet to review rates later in the day and most analysts expect them to stand pat.
Markets will keep a close watch on the policy statement from the two central banks as they are expected to be among the first in the region to hike rates next year, said Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ said in a research note. The Thai central bank left its policy interest rate unchanged on Wednesday. The Indonesian rupiah was trading flat ahead of the release of current account data for the third quarter. Indonesia had a deficit of $5.0 billion in its total foreign trade in goods and services in the second quarter, equal to 1.96 percent of gross domestic product. China's yuan inched up, supported in part by better-than-expected inflation data.