Themes

• General mood is “risk off”
• US markets closed overnight for Martin Luther King Jr Day
• Reports Japan poised to call a State of Emergency in Tokyo

What’s Moving

A very quiet session overnight with little major European data and with U.S. markets closed for the Martin Luther King Jr Day holiday. This saw currencies largely consolidate recent movements in a sideways fashion, with little in the way of range extensions either way.

The exception to this was USD/JPY, with the Yen weaker on reports that Japan is about to call a State of Emergency for Tokyo on the rising numbers of Covid infections there.

The other exception was crude oil, which hit a fresh seven year high.

Thoughts

Since we haven’t had any major offshore directional cues since last Friday night, expect another quiet session in Asia today. Compounding this will be the impending Chinese New Year holidays.

Local events today sees:

• Japanese BoJ meeting (No moves on rates expected)
• Japanese revised Industrial Production (E: 7.2%)

Pivot Points