Just a bit of respite so far in the new week

This looks to be a bit of a breather after the action on Thursday and Friday mostly, which saw the dollar hold its ground while stocks suffered a beating. European indices are up around 0.3% to 0.6% on the day, but that comes off the back of 2% to over 3% losses last week. Meanwhile, S&P 500 futures are up 8 points, or 0.2%, on the day currently.

Despite the light bounce, the technical overview for equities is quite ominous after having seen the S&P 500 broke below its 100-day moving average last week:

The double-top pattern near 4,100 suggests a breakdown towards 3,760 next potentially.

As for the dollar, some slight weakness today puts into consideration some key levels as noted earlier in the posts below:

• USD/JPY holds lower to start the week amid BOJ rumours
• EUR/USD eyes upside break again after last week's late slip up
• GBP/USD holds higher on softer dollar but gains aren't all that meaningful

But as we move towards the Christmas holiday, thinner liquidity conditions will make it tough to really read into the market moves as a whole. Even today, there is a bit of a mixed picture with bonds falling as we see 10-year Treasury yields hold higher by 3 bps to 3.52%.

The move higher in Japanese bond yields earlier in the day has helped somewhat with the move, amid chatter that the government and BOJ might look to revise its joint statement on policy and inflation Inflation Inflation is defined as a quantitative measure of the rate in which the average price level of goods and services in an economy or country increases over a period of time. It is the rise in the general level of prices where a given currency effectively buys less than it did in prior periods.In terms of assessing the strength or currencies, and by extension foreign exchange, inflation or measures of it are extremely influential. Inflation stems from the overall creation of money. This money is m Inflation is defined as a quantitative measure of the rate in which the average price level of goods and services in an economy or country increases over a period of time. It is the rise in the general level of prices where a given currency effectively buys less than it did in prior periods.In terms of assessing the strength or currencies, and by extension foreign exchange, inflation or measures of it are extremely influential. Inflation stems from the overall creation of money. This money is m Read this Term target/outlook.