Themes

• General mood is “risk off”
• Currencies quiet in Asia today
• All eyes on tonight’s FOMC rate decision, 25bp hike expected

What’s Moving

A very quiet session in Asia today, with a lack of trading incentives from overnight trade, coupled with tonight’s FOMC rate decision combining to remove liquidity from dealings. This saw all of the majors trade ultra-tight ranges, with no range extensions from overnight limitations.

There were some murmurings of a Russian default on its USD debt from Fitch today, but the market largely ignored that, while local data also had little market moving effect.

For tonight, expect a quiet European session ahead of the FOMC rate decision today. Fed members had been hawkish for a hike over the last couple o weeks and the market has largely priced in a hike of 25bps. More would be Dollar bullish, while no move would be Dollar bearish.

Overnight data today includes:

• Canadian CPI (E: +0.9%)
• U.S. Headline Retail Sales (E: +0.4%)
• U.S. Core Retail Sales (E: +0.9%)