Europe Summary and Highlights 10 January

European morning session

The USD was slightly weaker against the EUR, JPY and GBP through the European morning, with EUR/USD gaining around 20 pips to trade above 1.03 and USD/JPY dropping around 40 pips to 158, hitting a low of 157.62 mid-session.

However, the USD was otherwise mixed. It made some gains against the CHF, with EUR/CHF rising 30 pips o 0.9417, and also made small gains against the AUD. USD/CAD was marginally softer.

EUR/NOK rose two figures after weaker than expected Norwegian CPI. Headline fell to 2.2% y/y and core to 2.7% against consensus of 2.5% and 2.8% respectively. EUR/NOK initially gained 5 figures to 11.79 before dropping back to 11.76, leaving USD/NOK unchanged.

Asia session

The thought of low inflation or even deflation seems to have been craved not only to Japanese residents, but also officials as Japan Eco Min Akazawa is still talking about the deflationary mindset in his remarks. It does not sound like someone who is confident that the Japanese inflationary picture is enough despite headline CPI above 2% for a sustained period of time and the November Household Spending back to growth of 0.4% m/m.  USD/JPY is little affected and is trading 0.17% higher at 158.36.

The broad risk sentiment remains soft across regional with regional sentiment performing worse than U.S. major equity indexes. The latest Australian household spending in November came in lower than estimate at +0.4% m/m, continue to points towards a weak consumer demand. AUD/USD is down 0.02% to 0,6195, NZD/USD is down 0.1% to 0.5594 while USD/CAD rose 0.1%. Else, EUR/USD is down 0.02% and GBP/USD is down 0.11%.