Asia Summary and Highlights 2 January

Asia Session

2025 began with vibrant start in USD/JPY despite Japanese holiday. While thin liquidity may have exacerbated the move, USD/JPY jumped from session low to high 157 before rotating lower to 157.05 now, down 0.16% for the session. There is little fresh catalyst, except 10yr U.S. Treasury Yields rebounded from the opening gap while 2yr stay low, for the move and seems to be driven mostly by repositioning after the Christmas holidays for some market participants. 

On the first trading day of 2025, we are seeing a divergence in the equity space with Chinese and Hong Kong equites sunk while U.S. equities gains. The dent in regional sentiment seems to be derived from the miss in private manufacturing PMI (CAIXIN), which managed to stay in expansion.  AUD/USD shrugged off sour regional sentiment to trade 0.5% higher at 0.6219 as USD is broadly soft, NZD/USD also up 0.4% to 0.5616 while USD/CAD slipped 0.03% with oil gently higher. Else, EUR/USD is up 0.14% and GBP/USD is up 0.18%.