A low-volume day, as expected, with many market participants on holiday.
A light data/news day too:
- Geithner sent a letter to the US Senate saying the US will reach its statutory debt limit on Dec. 31 and that the Treasury will take ‘extraordinary measures’ to postpone a default, which will allow around 2 months to reach an agreement. There was little else on the Cliff issue; the players are expected back in Washington on Dec. 27.
- Chinese November Industrial Profits for January: November came in +3.0%, a big jump from the +0.5% in October
- Japan Vehicle Production Y/Y for November was -8.4% (Oct. was -12.4%)
- Japan Housing Starts +10.3% Y/Y for November (Market expected +10.7%)
- Japan Big 50 Constructors Orders (by Contract Value) for November -2.1% (Prior, October was -13.8%)
- Japan Housing Starts Annualized for November 0.907M (Expected was 0.911M)
- Late in the session the new Japanese EcoMinister Amari was reported on Reuters to have said he would work to meet high market expectations that are behind higher share prices and lower Yen … which sounded a little like maybe he was trying to lower expectations. The first sign of backpedalling from the new government?
- The Yen continued its weakening ways, as high as 85.84 (EUR/JPY 113.61) in Tokyo morning, and higher again in the post-lunch,with very little in the way of dips.
- EUR/USD did its ‘planking’ impersonation, trading a very tight range of 1.3220/1.3240, with a brief spike to 1.3246
- The NZD/USD found some support once New Zealand got active this morning, it traded from sub-0.8160 to 0.8210
- AUD/USD was very quiet, 1.0362/78 the range. It was helped by AUD/JPY buying but hindered by fears over the fiscal cliff.
