weekend:
Friday ICYMI:
In Asia on Monday, markets were closed at the following times:
Because of the Chinese New Year holidays. All three will be closed again on Tuesday. A complete list of extended Asia time zone holidays can be found here:
The lack of a major market meant that liquidity trading was sparse in the region.
News and data were very limited. I have the minutes of the Bank of Japan meeting in December (see bullet point above). At that meeting, the Bank of Japan widened the scope of his ability to trade 10-year Japanese government bonds. The decision shocked the global market. Since then, as a reminder:
The impact of the minutes was minor. Much of the material is covered in the Bank of Japan’s “opinion summary” of each meeting, which is released several weeks before the full minutes.
The Wall Street Journal has an article by ‘Federal Reserve Whisperer’ Timiraos, who says the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is planning a gradual +25bp rate hike at its Jan 31/Feb 1 meeting. I have confirmed that
Over the weekend, two members of the European Central Bank’s policy-making committee, Rehn and Knot, made hawkish comments (see bullet point above). In contrast to the Fed’s slowdown, the ECB looks set to continue his +50bp rate hikes in both February and March.
EUR/USD added to mid-session gains benefiting from Fed/ECB news.
The USD also fell wider. AUD, GBP are ahead of other FX gains.