Dollar, Yen Higher as Fiscal Cliff Fears Escalate

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- Dollar, Yen Higher as Fiscal Cliff Fears Escalate

-Asia markets fell after Republican leaders unexpectedly canceled a planned vote Thursday night on a tax-cut bill linked to fiscal-cliff talks, saying they didn’t have the votes to pass it.

- Asian Markets: NIKKEI -0.99%, HANG SENG -0.73%, Shanghai Comp +0.04%, ASX -0.23%

- Boehner disaster: vote delayed after failure to get enough support for plan B. Boehner said in a statement tonight that the House did not take up the measure because it failed to earn enough support from Republican members. The legislation has been shelved until after Christmas. "The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass," Boehner said in a statement. "Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff."

- Wall Street tense after ‘Fiscal cliff’ setback. Stock futures fell sharply Thursday evening after House Speaker John Boehner said he failed to mount support for his "Plan B" version of a bill that would raise taxes only on families earning more than $1 million, a plan already opposed by the White House.

-Due to ‘Boehner disaster’ US futures are trading lower. DOW JONES -1.455%, S&P -1.562%, NASDAQ -1.571%.

-Cyprus says suggestions of a haircut on its debt are unfounded. Cyprus dismissed as unfounded on Thursday any suggestion the IMF is seeking a writedown of the island's debt before it agrees to participate in a multi-billion euro bailout. "It is an unfounded allegation on which I do not wish to comment," Finance Minister Vassos Shiarly said.

-Carney Not Yet With Pink Set Sharing Policies Beyond BOE Circle. Mark Carney, the first foreigner appointed governor of Bank of England, hasn’t started work in London yet and he’s already talking about a policy that goes beyond what is considered acceptable in UK monetary circles.

- Japan repeats economy weak; bright spots in spending, output. The Japanese government on Friday left its overall economic assessment unchanged in its monthly report for December after revising it down in the previous four months. "The economy has shown weakness recently due to deceleration of the world economy," it said.

-Watch for today: Current account in the U.K and core durable goods orders in the United States are the major market movers today