Themes

• General mood is “risk off”
• Offshore focus remains on Omicron Covid variant
• RBA Minutes today the only key release in Asia

What’s Moving

Quiet trading in Europe saw some interesting moves in U.S. trading, with Biden’s “Build Back Better” stimulus seemingly defeated before it was voted on. This combined with continued fears of Omicron saw U.S. equities weaker, while gold and oil prices were also down on the day.

This all saw some buying of EUR and JPY against the Dollar, while the Dollar still managed to firm against the Canadian Dollar. Commodity currencies were hurt by weaker oil and gold prices.

Thoughts

Expect another quiet pre-end of the year session on currencies today with little of note on the slate and after another session of wild swings overnight. Gold may see higher levels today, but we are expecting to range extensions on currencies in Asia today.

The RBA Minutes are released today, and traders will be looking to how hawkish the comments are and how that will effect rate cut expectations for early to mid next year.

Pivot Points