Themes

• General mood is “risk off”
• Fed’s Bullard: Would support a hike in March, prefer a hike in May
• U.S. ISM Manufacturing PMI at 57.6 (E:57.4)

What’s Moving

The general bias overnight was to light USD weakness. This was mainly a drift over the course of the day, although further weakness occurred after comments by Fed’s Bullard that while he would support a U.S. rate hike in March, he would prefer it to be in May.

Best performer of the majors was the AUD. Which rose in like with comments from the RBA that it expects inflation to move sharply higher. This dragged the NZD higher as well.

Thoughts

Another bank holiday in China today, combined with a lack of major directional bias in U.S. trade overnight should see yet another quiet session in Asia today.

There is no major Asian data today, but RBA Governor Philip Lowe is set to speak.  

Pivot Points