Economic Data

  • ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Confidence Index for the week ending Jan 10 -47 from -41 the previous week (the highest level since Sept. 2008).
  • New Zealand ANZ Commodity Price Index in December +2.6 %
  • Japanese December Corporate Bankruptcies -0.35 % m/m
  • Japanese December Corporate Bankruptcies -16.59 % y/y
  • Japanese December Corporate Bankruptcy debt -57.46 % m/m
  • Japanese December Corporate Bankruptcy Debt -53.38 % y/y at Yen 295,577 billion

News

  • Haitian capital Port-au-Prince devastated by magnitude 7.0 earthquake. Hundreds possibly thousands buried in the rubble of collapsed buildings.
  • Bank of England Board Member Andrew Sentance talking on the UK stimulus measures saying that there has to come a point where enough is enough, not to withdraw it but to stop and take a look how the stimulus is flowing into the economic recovery. If the B of E’s Monetary Policy Committee decides against increasing the stimulus this does not necessarily mean that interest rates will tighten in the UK. UK CPI will go above target in the early part of 2010 even though it didn’t fall as sharply as expected last year.
  • Philadelphia Fed President Plosser believes the economic recovery will be sustainable as stimulus winds down. As the US economy comes out of the recession it is doing so with moderate growth and low inflation. Full economic recovery in the financial markets will take time. He expects economic growth to be between 3 and 3.5 % over the next 2 years. On interest rates the Fed will need to raise rates as the economy improves. On house prices the market seems to have stabilized but there could be some risk in the Commercial Real Estate market. On the jobless rate he believes it will begin to decline by the end of 2010 but an uptick will occur before that. The December jobs data didn’t change his view on the economic recovery he was actually more surprised by the November data than that of December. Through the course of the first half of the year bank lending will pick up. When the Fed exits its MBS program there should be little impact on spreads. There will be payroll growth in the first quarter will start off slowly but then begin to gather steam
  • Dallas Fed President Fisher saying that the government must be cautious on its exit strategy being careful to avoid unnecessary inflation worries. One of the Feds next tasks is to unwind “balance sheet expansion”.

Currencies

  • Euro trapped in a range 1.4450 – 1.4500 with Central Banks reported to be on the bid and on the offer.
  • Dollar – Yen. Yen weakened as the shares of JAL crashed early in Nikkei trading dollar-Yen spiking to 91.35 before downside pressure pushed it back down to 91.00
  • Sterling traded quietly in a narrow range until the later part of the session when it moved higher looking at one stage to break 1.6200
  • Dollar – Swiss confined in a tight range
  • Aussie saw corporate demand to buy up to the 0.9225 level but that move was short lived drifted off but then strengthened slightly with the moderate weakness in the dollar in the latter stages of the session.

Ranges

EUR/USD 1.4455 – 1.4493 USD/JPY 90.90 – 91.35 GBP/USD 1.6133 – 1.6192 USD/CHF 1.0179 – 1.0206 AUD/USD 0.9189 – 0.9238 NZD/USD 0.7370 – 0.7416

FX rates as at 12.00 am EST

EUR/USD 1.4488/91 USD/JPY 91.09/12 GBP/USD 1.6188/92 USD/CHF 1.0180/85 USD/CAD 1.0377/82 AUD/USD 0.9234/38 NZD/USD 0.7410/15 EUR/JPY 131.98/02 EUR/GBP 0.8948/52

Dollar Index 77.150 (+0.03)

Gold 1129.60/30.40

Oil 80.03

Current Asian Equity Markets

  • Nikkei at 10,783-07 lower by 96-07 (- 0.88 %)
  • Hang Seng at 21,825-46 lower by 501-18 (- 2.24 %)
  • Kopsi at 1,678-16 lower by 20-48 (- 1.21 %)
  • Shanghai Composite at 3,198,007 lower by 75,959 (- 2.32 %)