With US stocks breaking a six day losing streak amidst investor optimism about a fresh injection of capital from the stimulus package, risk appetite was back in play and the Yen suffered for it. USD/JPY bottomed out early in NY trading at 88.50 and hasn't looked back since as the Asia session saw an early low of 89.72 quickly disappear as the pair topped out at 90.57 as of this writing. Crosses were well bid as well today, as we saw the EUR/JPY rise from 117.77 to just near 119.77, a quick and orderly two handle move. NZD/JPY made a nice reversal from NY lows of 47.15 as it flew to highs just over 49.60. AUD/JPY turned around as well, from 58.18 NY lows to 60.90 Asian highs. Many traders feel that the upcoming inauguration of President elect Obama will be good for stocks and bad news for the Yen, however it still remains to be seen how his presidency will turn around a global economic crisis.
After last nights expected ECB rate cut of 50bp to 2.0 the real news was ECB President Trichet stating that a zero rate policy was not in the cards. The EUR/USD has seen some wild moves over the past 24 hours, a late NY low of 1.3025 was quickly forgotten as the pair hit a top of 1.3275 in late Asian trading,
Keep in mind that US equities are closed on Monday due to the Martin Luther King holiday....we will be here as usual.
Upcoming Economic Data Releases (London Session):
| 1/16/2009 | 8:15 | SZ | Producer & Import Prices (MoM) | DEC | -1.40% | -0.60% |
| 1/16/2009 | 8:15 | SZ | Producer & Import Prices (YoY) | DEC | 1.10% | 0.60% |
| 1/16/2009 | 8:30 | UK | BOE Deputy Governor Gieve to Make Speech | 16-Jan | ||
| 1/16/2009 | 10:00 | EC | Euro-Zone Trade Balance | NOV | 0.9B | 1.0B |
| 1/16/2009 | 10:00 | EC | Euro-Zone Trade Balance sa | NOV | -1.3B | -4.8B |
