• France’s Sarkozy says Europe must protect its’ industries if US is doing same.
  • ECB’s Provopoulus: ECB unlikely to cut rates more than 50 bps in March. Sees zero rates as “unimaginable.”
  • US consumer confidence index at 25.0 in February, record low.
  • Fed’s Bernanke: Outlook for economic activity subject to considerable risk.
  • ECB’s Weber: Still room to cut rates, but personally sees !% as lowest limit.
  • Japan’s Aso: Crucial to maintain confidence in USD.
  • Main feature of North American session continued yen weakness. Much talk of move to 100 in USD/JPY and 127.50 in EUR/JPY. Weakness accelerated when buy stops in USD/JPY at 96.10 triggered. There are many reasons being given for this accelerated yen weakness. Among them are; parlous Japanese economic fundamentals, political uncertainty in Japan, talk Nikkei holders seen hedging for first time in a while buying good amounts of USD/JPY, talk Japanese exporters overhedged in USD/JPY as the global economy slows and they can’t export their goods, poor technical picture for JPY in USD/JPY and JPY crosses and finally fear of official intervention around 85.00 making selling USD/JPY a poor prospect on perceived risk/reward. I’m sure there are other reasons, but that’s a few to be getting on with.