Forex headlines for Oct 1, 2014:

I blame the first day of the quarter but here is the wall of worry if you’re the kind of person wants a reason for everything, here are some of the factors people cited for the massive flight to quality today.

  1. Ebola
  2. Hong Kong protests
  3. Talk about fresh Russian sanctions
  4. The soft German PMI
  5. ISM manufacturing
  6. Caution ahead of ECB and non-farm payrolls
  7. Turn of the calendar/quarter

For all the big moves in stocks, the FX generally took it all in stride. The main feature was yen weakness but other than some more-intense selling against NZD (Fonterra) and GBP (Markit PMI) the damage was limited.

That said, there’s are lot of questions about USD/JPY after the turnaround today slapped a bearish outside reversal from the 6-year high earlier in the day.

No one seemed to pay much attention to the head of bonds at Blackstone saying it’s a “mistake” to think the ECB will buy sovereign bonds. There will be a massive focus on Draghi in the day ahead. His comments today might have been a preview.