Asia Summary and Highlights 22 Dec
Risk on a high note to start the Christmas week
Asia Session
The USD is starting the Christmas week on a soft note as risk sentiment seems to be upbeat heading into year end. The potential geopolitical drama does not seem to affect broader risk sentiment, except oil opening twenty cent higher. USD/JPY is trading 0.26% lower at 157.29 helped by some jawboning.
The broad risk sentiment is upbeat on Monday as we see major equity indexes are all in the green. AUD/USD is trading 0.24% higher at 0.6627, NZD/USD is trading 0.21% while USD/CAD slides 0.06%. Else, EUR/USD is up0,1% and GBP/USD is up 0.17%.
North American session
USD/JPY remained firm but stabilized around 157.50. EUR/USD found support at 1.17 and rose to 1.1720, seeing EUR/JPY above 184.60. Equity strength gave some support to the commodity currencies, as AUD/USD found support at .66 and USD/CAD slipped from 1.38, though CAD gains corrected in the afternoon.
There was not much news. Fed’s Williams saw no urgency to act on policy. October Canadian retail sales were weak at -0.2% but with preliminary signals for November positive. November US existing home sales saw a third straight rise, by 0.5% to 4.13m. Final December Michigan CSI revisions were marginal.