USD/JPY SHORT-TERM TECHNICAL FORECAST – NEUTRAL The Japanese yen’s rally against the US dollar appears to have stalled in recent days as the market looks for further cues from the upcoming US Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting. While the market widely expects the Fed to hike rates by 25 basis points to 4.5%-4.75% on...Read More

Crude oil has steadied to start the week as China returns from the Lunar New Year holidays and ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday. Both the WTI and Brent futures contracts took a beating on Friday as fears of a recession in the US seem to have undermined confidence that...Read More

The British pound prepares itself for a stacked week ahead that include both Bank of England (BoE) and Federal Reserve interest rate decisions respectively (see economic calendar below). The BoE has hinted at yet another 50bps hike which is confirmed by money market pricing as seen in the table below. While this is largely priced...Read More

Asia-Pacific Market Briefing – AUD/USD May Rise After Rosy US Session The sentiment-linked Australian Dollar pulled cautiously higher on Thursday after US GDP data bolstered risk appetite on Wall Street. At the end of the session, the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 gained 0.61%, 1.1% and 1.76%, respectively. This risk-on dynamic dented demand...Read More

NZD/USD SHORT-TERM TECHNICAL FORECAST – NEUTRAL Wednesday’s drop in the New Zealand dollar against the US dollar could be short-lived. NZD/USD fell after New Zealand’s fourth-quarter inflation rose less than what the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) had forecast. CPI rose 7.2% on-year in the fourth quarter, slightly above analysts’ expectations of 7.1%, but...Read More

Technical achievements alone are not enough to prompt the market to action. For charts traders – myself included – this has led to significant frustration in assessing market moves over these past months. The most recent break would come from the S&P 500 to start this week. The benchmark US index Monday picked up where...Read More

Global market sentiment was a mixed bag last week. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones plummeted 2.38% as the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 soared 1.27%. Things looked worse across the Atlantic Ocean, the DAX 40 and FTSE 100 fell -0.35% and -0.94%, respectively. Markets were rosier in the Asia-Pacific region. The Nikkei 225 and Hang Seng...Read More

Asia-Pacific Market Briefing – Australian Dollar Vulnerable to Risk Aversion The sentiment-linked Australian Dollar underperformed against its major counterparts over the past 24 hours. It began with a disappointing employment report, where Australia unexpectedly lost jobs in December as unemployment ticked slightly higher. While this may induce less-hawkish Reserve Bank of Australia policy expectations, the...Read More

The Australian Dollar had a look lower after the unemployment rate came in at 3.5% for December against 3.4% previously and forecast. There were -14.6k fewer jobs which were below the 25k forecast to be added and 58k prior. Although a small miss, the unemployment rate continues to linger near multi-generational lows. Today’s numbers show...Read More

The Japanese Yen weakened over 2 percent in the aftermath of January’s Bank of Japan monetary policy announcement. If losses are sustained, this will end up being the best single-day performance for USD/JPY since March 2020. Let us take a closer look at what happened here. Well as it turns out, nothing much at all....Read More