- China to remove its official covid-tracking movement app on Tuesday
- November Japanese PPI +9.3% vs +8.9% y/y expected
- Is the G7 starting a quiet push for peace in Ukraine? Virtual G7 leaders' summit called
- Japan's largest industrial union to seek 6% salary hike
- What's priced in for the Fed, BOE, SNB and ECB this week
- PBOC sets yuan midpoint at 6.9565 vs last close at 6.9598
- China new covid cases dip slightly but the numbers don't mean what they used to
- Yellen predicts "much lower inflation" by the end of 2023
- US natural gas prices jump 10% at the open on cold weather forecasts
- New Zealand net migration +3,343 vs +2,176 prior
Markets:
- Gold down $8 to $1787
- Nikkei 225 down 0.2%
- Hong Kong Hang Seng -1.9%
- WTI crude up 61-cents to $71.63
- USD leads, AUD lags
Weekend news was largely ignored in early trading as China continues to drop restrictions and cases rise. Instead the early theme was USD buying as a decent bid kicked off after Tokyo came online.
I'm tempted to look forward rather than back for reasons. It's a huge week on the economic calendar and the early theme may be to pare down risk ahead of the minefield ahead.
AUD and NZD were sold particularly hard in the early going with AUD falling as low as 0.6758. More recently, it's bounced to 0.6781 as the market gets more of a two-way feel.
Oil strengthened early but gave most of it back. There was some light Saudi jawboning and the momentum from late on Friday kept up but the gains were briefly wiped out as the volatility continues.
Overall, there weren't any big surprises or moves as the market begins to buckle up for a big one in the final week of the year of full-market liquidity.
