Aussie

This morning US futures are an unfamiliar shade of green, as the market is poised for its first red open in recent memory (then again the traditional EURJPY pre-open ramp is still to come). One of the reasons blamed for the lack of generic monetary euphoria is that China looked likely to buck the trend for more monetary policy support. New Premier Li Keqiang said in a speech published in full late on Monday that adding extra stimulus would be more difficult since printing new money would cause inflation. "His comments are different from what people were expecting. This is a shift from what he said earlier this year about bottom-line growth," said Hong Hao, chief strategist at Bank of Communications International. Asian shares struggled as a result slipping about 0.2 percent, though Japan's Nikkei stock average bounced off its lows and managed a 0.2 percent gain. However, in a world in which the monetary tsunami torch has to be passed every few months, this will hardly be seen as supportive of the "bad news is good news" paradigm we have seen for the past 5 years.

Just when the dollar's last rites were being considered, it has bounced back and looks poised to move higher in the days ahead.

In addition to the bevy of ugly European unemployment and inflation news just reported, the overnight session had a dollop of more ugly macro data for the algos to kneejerkingly react to and ramp stocks to fresh time highs on. First it was China, where the PBOC did another reverse repo, however this time at a fixed 4.3% rate, 0.2% higher than the Monday iteration and well above the 3%-handle from early October, indicating that China is truly intent on tightening its monetary conditions. Then Japan confirmed that despite the soaring imported food and energy inflation, wages just refuse to rise, and have declined now for nearly 1.5 years. Then, adding core insult to peripheral injury, Germany reported retail sales that missed expectations of a +0.4% print wildly, declining -0.4% from a prior downward revised 0.5% to -0.2%. And so on: more below. However, as usual what does matter is how the market digests the FOMC news, and for now the sense is that the risk of a December taper has risen based on the FOMC statement language, whether warranted or not, which as a result is pushing futures modestly lower following an epic move higher in the month of October on nothing but pure balance sheet and multiple expansion.  The big data week in the US rolls on with the highlights being the Chicago PMI and initial jobless claims, which are expected to print their first accurate, non-impaired reading since August.

The overnight fireworks out of China's interbank market, which saw a surge in repo and Shibor rates (O/N +78 to 5.23%, 1 Week +64.6 to 5.59%) once more following the lack of a follow through reverse repo as described previously, and once again exposed the rogue gallery of sellside "analysts" as clueless penguins all of whom predicted a quick resumption of Chinese interbank normalcy, did absolutely nothing to make the San Diego's weatherman's forecast of the overnight Fed-driven futures any more difficult: "stocks will be... up. back to you." And so they were, despite as DB puts it, "yesterday saw another round of slightly softer US data that helped drive the S&P 500 and Dow Jones to fresh highs" and "the release of weaker than expected Japanese IP numbers hasn’t dampened sentiment in Japanese equities" or for that matter megacorp Japan Tobacco firing 20% of its workforce - thanks Abenomics. Ah, remember when data mattered? Nevermind - long live and prosper in the New Normal. Heading into US trading, today the markets will be transfixed by the FOMC announcement at 2 pm, which will likely say nothing at all (although there is a chance for a surprise - more shortly), and to a lesser extent the ADP Private Payrolls number, which as many have suggested, that if it prints at 0 or goes negative, 1800 on the S&P is assured as early as today.

Overview of the price action in the fx market.

It may seem counter-intuitive but the US dollar appreciated last week, despite the partial closure of the Federal government, the heightened risk of default and the nomination of Yellen.  The dollar can move higher next week too.  

Markets are so obsessed by developments with the US debt ceiling, that absolutely nobody noticed that the Japanese Current Account (JPY152Bn, Exp. JPY520bn), Industrial Outuput in Spain (-2.0%, Exp. -1.6%), Factory Orders in Germany (-0.3%, Exp. +1.2%), Trade Balance in Germany (€13.1bn, Exp. €15.0 bn) and that the Jan-Aug tax revenue in Greece below expectations by 5.7%, all missed horribly, and that for all the talk of a European recovery (which was merely driven by a brief surge in Chinese credit spending making its way into the European pipeline) is once again fully and entirely premature. But with Congress on everyone's mind, even increasingly China and Japan, who cares about fundamentals: after all there is a Federal Reserve to mask the fact that nothing but liquidity injections matters. Even if that means a complete collapse in the actual economy as those separated from the Fed by one or more layers of banks, crash and burn.

Technically, the dollar is looking a bit better.  Here is our assessment.

A US government shutdown, slumping vehicle sales, Aussie trade deficit double what was expected (and building approvals tumbled), Asian growth expectations being cut, and Japan's monetray base is up 46.1% YoY (versus 42.0% exp.)... Japanese stocks are down over 400 points from the US day session highs, falling for the 4th day in a row (down 4.8% from the highs last week) as the third arrow confusion reigns taking the Nikkei 225 back to 3 week lows. The Rupiah (Indonesia) and Baht (Thailand) are weakening (bucking the 3-day weakness in the USD) and Indonesian (+10bps), Aussie, and Kiwi bonds are leaking higher in yield. In general, AsiaPac equities are holding modest gains but Singapore and Japan are taking it on the chin... S&P futures -5 from day-session highs.

Dispassionate overview of the key factors shaping the investment climate in the week ahead.  

Overview of near-term dollar outlook.

The primary trend of the AUD is down. Bernanke has provided us the opportunity to sell the rally and profit from a primary trend continuation.

The Fed is among the only major central banks not meeting next week, yet it is overshadowing the others.  The dollar's tone improved markedly in recent days.  There is still scope for the Fed to disappoint the dollar bulls.  

Quick, dispassionate overview of the fx market.

As Australia's Leading economic index data hit, printing 0.0% for its lowest level in 13 months, AUDJPY fell out of bed with a thump and snapped carry-trades that were holding Asian stocks near unch early on. The Nikkei 225 fell over 250 points from its post-US close highs. The Aussie data combined with news that Fukushima was being raised to a Level 3 'incident' is escalating the JPY move (and dragging Nikkei -11.5% from its 7/18 dead-cat-bounce highs). Asian FX is fading once again (though KRW and TWD are modestly bid) led by IDR and THB. Indonesian stocks are also suffering as the currency has devalued almost 7% in the last 4 days and dropped by its most since Lehman tonight. Chinese stocks are siding fast led by Everbright which has now fallen 17% since it re-opened for trading yesterday. S&P futures are -3 from the US close (down over 9 points from the intraday highs) and Treasury futures have rallied back to unch from a modest dip earlier in the Asian session.