Hurricane Sandy was, of course, the focus today – how much damage would it do, specifically to the financial sector in NYC? It appears the worst has now passed though it is questionable if the US markets will open Tuesday.
In Asia we had quite poor economic data out of Japan, worse than expected:
- Japan Unemployment rate unchanged at 4.2%
- Japan Household Spending way below expectations at -0.9% YoY.
- Japan Industrial Production below expectations at -4.1% (MoM) ( -8.1% Year-on-year).
Australian new housing starts came in at -3.7% for September. The AUD had a dead session.
EUR/JPY traded up a little in response to the Japanese Economics Minister Seiji Maehara’s call for the BOJ to implement strong monetary easing. While this pushed EUR/USD to 1.2918, in doing so it provided the bears with another opportunity to load up, with the EUR/USD going towards the end of the session back on its lows. Further signs of a risk-off tone are found in the S&P500 making lows now for the Globex session.
As of writing we still await the BOJ decision (Y10T easing is the market expectation) and press conference.
Other:
- Magnitude 6.2 earthquake off west coast of Canada
- Low-level alert at Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in New Jersey due to rising water level,