Newsquawk Daily Economic Releases - 31st July 2026

A packed calendar of this kind, with a BoJ announcement and a Ueda presser alongside Tokyo CPI and Chinese NBS PMIs in the same session, has historically concentrated Asia-session volatility in JPY, since Tokyo CPI has served as the lead indicator for national inflation ahead of the policy decision and tends to shape the reaction to it. The distinction worth drawing is between a BoJ that moves on policy and one that adjusts guidance only: the former re-prices the yen and JGB front end outright, the latter shifts the weight onto Ueda's tone and any board vote split. Chinese PMIs arriving in the same window have typically transmitted through commodities, the AUD and CNH proxies rather than through equities directly. The European flash inflation prints, German unemployment and the US Michigan final fill out a session where the calendar itself is the story: clustered releases of this density tend to produce thin liquidity pockets around each print. The speaker slate, including BoE and Fed officials after the BoJ, sets up the usual pattern of follow-on commentary either reinforcing or diluting the initial move.