Themes

· General mood is “risk off”

· IMF lowers 2022 global GDP forecast to 3.6% from 4.4%

· Fed’s Evans: Comfortable with two 50bp hikes this year

What’s Moving

European trade was quiet, with most of the larger players coming back from extended Easter holidays. New York opened largely flat, until the IMF downgraded their global growth forecast for this year.

This saw large buying enter the Dollar, particularly against the Yem and Swiss Franc. It also weighed heavily on gold which fell about $40/oz.

Thoughts

Al eyes in Asia today will be on comments or action from the BoJ, with the USD/JPY opening in Asia just below the 130.00 level. Expect further jawboning from officials to support the Yen today.

Asian session data today sees:

· Japanese Trade Balance (E: -0.58tln)

· Japanese Tertiary Activity (E: +0.3%)