The Japanese yen remains the strongest currency this week as the financial markets are dominated by risk aversion. WTI crude oil's down trend picked up momentum against and reached as low as 47.55 overnight. Weakness in oil also dragged down equities with DIJA losing another -130.01 pts, or -0.74% to close at 17371.64. S&P 500 dropped -17.97 pts, or -0.89%, to close at 2002.61. Asian stocks stabilized after initial selloff but Nikkei is still holding below 17000 handle at the time of writing. It should also be noted that treasury yield had another day of steep decline with 30-year yield closed at 2.523, comparing to prior day's 2.605. 10 year yield also broke 2.00 level to close at 1.963. In the currency markets, sterling remains the weakest one as weighed down by a string of worse than expected PMI data. Dollar is generally firm except versus yen and kiwi.
Euro also extended recent decline ahead of inflation data from eurozone. CPI is expected to drop further in December on falling energy prices. And there are chances that it will fall into negative territory. Core CPI is expected to be unchanged at 0.7% YOY. According to a Dutch newspaper report, ECB is considering three options for sovereign bond purchases ahead of the January 22 meeting. With the first option, ECB would buy government bonds in proportion to the countries share holding in the central bank. Second option is that ECB would only purchase AAA rated government bonds to drive respective yield into zero or negative territory. The third option would have national central banks buying the respective government bonds so as to have the risks staying with the country. Also to be released from eurozone include unemployment rate, PMI retail and German unemployment.
FOMC minutes is another major focus for today. Fed chair Janet Yellen said after last meeting that Fed would remain patient on the timing of the first rate hike. But, she also mentioned that inflation doesn't need to rise before start of policy normalization. And markets would be eager to look into policymakers' mind on how patient they would be, and clarifications of these ideas. Also to be watched, US will release ADP employment which is expected to show 226k growth in December. US will release trade balance too. Canada will release trade balance and Ivey PMI.