Themes

· General mood is “risk off”

· Fed’s Powell: It is appropriate to be moving more quickly and front-end loading

· Fed’s Daly: We will likely be raising by 50bps at a couple of Fed meetings

What’s Moving

Dollar buying was the theme in early overnight trade, with the Dollar firmer in European trade and further supported by hawkish comments from Fed’s Powell and Daly.

The Dollar strength then stalled as players took notice of a rise in U.S. yields, with profit taking seen across most of the majors on Dollar longs.

Thoughts

Expect pre-weekend position adjustment to be the dominant flow in Asia today. Australian Flash Manufacturing (57.9) and Services (56.6) have both already come out today and were near expectations.

Other data in Asia today includes:

· Japanese National Core CPI (E: +0.8)

· Japanese Flash Manufacturing PMI (E: 53.3)