- BOJ cuts economic assessment of 8 out of 9 regions in Japan in quarterly report
- S&P: Japan’s deficits to remain high for several years. S&P may cut Japan ratings if debt trend stays on current trend. Japan’s fiscal flexibility continues to diminish
- Germany’s Seibert: Rejects reports that Germany might block EU summit
- Bundesbank: Signs are increasing that economy will stagnate, or contract, in Q4
- ECB’s Mersch: Must avoid negative side effects of special measures -Document
- More Mersch: Talk of further Greek debt restructuring not helpful now
- ECB’s Asmussen: ECB’s main mandate is price stability
- More Asmussen: Germany’s weathered the crisis well
- ECB’s Demetriades: European banking union will be a boost to the euro
- IMF’s epic plan to conjure away debt and dethrone bankers - AEP at The Telegraph
- Spanish vote delivers mixed verdict – WSJ
- Germany likely posted surprise growth in Q3: FinMin report
The Japanese yen has seen some across the board weakness this morning, USD/JPY up at 79.80 from early 79.57 having been as high as 79.86. EUR/JPY is up at 104.28 from early 103.85. The BOJ downgrading the economic assessment of 8 out of 9 regions and S&P threatening sovereign rating cut (see both above) didn’t help matters.
US treasury yields have also marched higher, helping support USD/JPY. The benchmark 1o year yield is presently up at 1.7993% from a North American close last Friday down around 1.7660%.
Next hurdle for the USD/JPY bulls is now the psychological 80.00 level which houses barrier option interest (shock horror!!)
EUR/USD marginally firmer at 1.3065 from early 1.3052 in lacklustre trade. We slipped early to session low 1.3024 before recovering. Demand for the EUR/JPY cross has obviously helped support EUR/USD. Theres also been much talk of very large 1.3050 vanilla option interest expiring at todays’ New York cut. Magnetic innit (or so I keep being told)
Buy orders seen clustered down at 1.2990/1.3010, sell stops gathering below there.
