Themes

• General mood is “risk off”
• U.S. Durable Goods print better at +0.7% from +0.4% talk
• Weekend: Putin has placed his nuclear deterrence forces on alert

What’s Moving

The dominant flow on Friday night was pre-weekend position adjustment, with equities posting consecutive positive days, while currencies were supported by talk that Putin would be prepared to meet with the Ukraine.

Currencies had another wild session, but most of it, as mentioned, was position adjustment flow.

Thoughts

News over the weekend that Russia has placed its nuclear deterrence forces on alert should bring the save haven bid back to currency trade in Asia today.

We are expecting this to support the Dollar and gold strongly.

Local session data today includes:

• Japanese Preliminary Industrial Production (E: -0.6%)
• Japanese Retail Sales (E: +1.5%)
• Australian Retail Sales (E: +0.3%)
• Japanese Housing Starts (E: +2.2%)

Pivot Points