The financial markets are generally steady this week. Recovery is seen in commodity currencies but strength is relatively limited. Dollar index pared back some of last week's gain and is trading at 98.4 at the time of writing. Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart said that interest rate will move up "gradually" after the first rate hike in nearly a decade. But that didn't mean "every meeting, in all likelihood". And he said that "the rate of rising interest rates will be more like every other meeting". But still, the "important point" is that the pace will depend on "how the economy performs" and be "data dependent".
In China, the PBoC Auctioned CNY 30b of seven-day reverse repos today. That's a sharply higher volume comparing to last week's CNY 10B. This is seen as a response to the government's Central Economic Work Conference, where leaders said that there should be flexible monetary policy and forceful fiscal policy to create the "appropriate monetary conditions for structural reforms. Meanwhile 10-year bond yield in China sinks to the lowest level since January 2009.
On the data front, UK Gfk consumer sentiment rose to 2 in December. China conference board leading index rose 0.6% in December. Looking ahead, Swiss trade balance, German Gfk consumer sentiment and UK public sector net borrowing will be released in European session. US will release Q3 GDP final, house price index and existing home sales.