GBP gapped lower on Monday morning early here in Asia with the news on Sunday from the UK of PM Johnson tightening COVID-19 restrictions again for the country and rolling out an accelerated booster shot program. This, of course, is in response to a rapid increase in Omicron variant COVID-19 infections. GBP has retraced to cover much of the gap and has, as I post, settled more or less sideways just a touch softer.

USD/JPY was a mover, it too gapped lower and retraced but has consolidated its retrace to be higher on the session. The Bank of Japan Tankan for Q4 showed small improvement once again but sentiment is well below re-pandemic levels.

Elsewhere across major FX the moves are more contained, and mixed.

Chinese equities are higher for the day, with the mainland Shanghai Comp and HK’s Hang Seng both up. Oil gained also.

BTC/USD lost ground to under $49K, undercut by the Binance news (although that really should not be much of a surprise (see bullets above).

Coming up on Monday from Canada, Bank of Canada Governor Macklem speaks:

Macklem