Australia

Premia for gold bars (physical over paper) rallied to their highest since late-2008 according to SocGen, even as 'professional' investors look to position the exact other way. The combined short positions of futures and options speculators in COMEX gold is now at a record high for the third week (having surged from 4.3 million ounces in late September to a a stunning 13.9 million ounces short now. At the same time, Gold ETFs have only seen one in-flow day in the last 34 days. It seems investors are well-and-truly on one side of this boat - even as price continues to buck the supposed structural weakness.

Driving the sentiment was the report that U.S. jobless benefits decreased to their lowest rate since 2007. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser forecasted that day unemployment will drop to 7% by December 2013 and he favours reducing the Fed’s $85 billion monthly bond purchases next month. Plosser however has no vote on Fed policy this year.

While hedge funds are seeing outflows of $20.8 billion from gold funds this year, BlackRock Inc. the world’ biggest money manager is still bullish, reported Bloomberg.

In the US, retail sales are expected to continue to slow in the headline, while retail sales ex autos, building materials, and gas should turn positive in April according to Wall Street analysts. Goldman remains below consensus for Thursday's Philadelphia Fed survey, forecasting a slight improvement on the previous month. The firm also expects the flash reading for Euro area Q1 GDP to come in slightly below consensus, consistent with a shallow contraction. We forecast German GDP will turn positive in Q1 after Q4 2012's negative reading. In Japan, GS sees Q1 GDP at 2.8% qoq ann., slightly above consensus, with stronger consumer spending the main driver. Among the central bank meetings this week, Russia, Chile, and Indonesia are expected to remain on hold, in line with consensus.

A look at the main drivers.

There are signs that China's economy may have a short-term uptick but that shouldn't detract from what remains a poor long-term outlook.

It is a fair bet that one way or another, the current generation of young people will be unwilling and/or unable to pay for Social Security and Medicare as they presently stand. Of course, Western Europe has the same problem and President Hollande of France recently got a whiff of what is coming from an open letter addressed to him by a 20-year old student named Clara G... "I want to go to a country where there is growth, where wages are rising, where being rich is not a deadly sin, a country in short where the individual and the society have confidence that tomorrow will be brighter than today." Developed nations with deteriorating demographics will have a big problem if large taxpayers decided to move away to lower tax jurisdictions. Clara’s letter suggests that an exodus by the young would be just as damaging, indeed probably more damaging.

The Bernanke Chicago speech became little more than a side show Friday. He did say the Fed was keeping a watchful eye on yield risk-taking given ZIRP. He’s a little late to that observation methinks.

• PBOC Says China Shouldn’t Be ’Blindly Optimistic’ on Inflation (BBG)
• Foreigners Buying Half of London New Homes Prop Up Building (BBG) - first they come for the foreign deposits, then for the real assets...
• Investors Rediscovering Margin Debt (WSJ) - well, yes: it is at record highs
• China issues new rules targeting wealth management fund pools (RTRS)
• Navy $37 Billion Ships Seen Unsuitable Have 2-Year Window (BBG)
• New York may have to drop claims against BofA over Merrill (RTRS)
• FBI Rejects Boston Police Stance in Spat Over Terror Data (BBG)
• In eastern Syria oil smugglers benefit from chaos (RTRS)

The main story overnight is without doubt the dramatic plunge in the Yen, which following the breach and trigger of USDJPY 100 stops has been a straight diagonal line to the upper right (or lower for the Yen across all currency crosses) and at last check was approaching 101.50, in turn sending the USD higher in virtually all jurisdictions. However it is not so much the Yen weakness that was surprising - a nation hell bent on doubling its monetary base in two years will do that - but the accelerating response in neighboring countries all of which are seeing Japan as the biggest economic threat suddenly and all are scrambling to respond. Sure enough, midway through the evening session, Sri Lanka cut its reverse repo and repurchase rate to 9% and 7% respectively, promptly followed by Vietnam cutting its own refinancing rate from 8% to 7%, then moving to Thailand where the finance chief Kittiratt called for a rate cut exceeding 25 bps, and more jawboning from South Korea suggesting even more rate cuts from the export-driven country are set to come as it loses trade competitiveness to Japan. Asian financial crisis 2.0 any minute now?

Kenya, Australia, Poland and now South Korea. The country, whose net exports represent nearly 60% of GDP, and which have been deeply impacted by the recent collapse in the Yen, finally threw in the towel overnight and cut the benchmark seven-day repurchase rate from 2.75% to 2.50%, as only 6 of 20 economists predicted. The reason the move was surprising is that just like China, which overnight reported CPI of 2.4% on expectations of 2.3%, the country still has pent up inflation concerns, however it appears that preserving economic growth and its export potential is more important to the country bordered by North Korea, than price stability. The result of this largely unexpected move is a strengthening in the Yen overnight, if only by some 30 pips in the USDJPY.

Following on the widely telegraphed rate cut by the Australian central bank overnight to a record low 2.75%, here comes a truly surprise move out of the Kenya Central Bank, and its Governor Njuguna Ndung'u whose central bank just showed the world how it's really done:

• KENYA CENTRAL BANK CUTS BENCHMARK RATE TO 8.50% FROM 9.50%
• KENYA CENTRAL BANK SAYS CONFIDENCE IN ECONOMY HAS INCREASED

As long as the confidence is there... Incidentally, the expectations, by those who have nothing better to do than forecast what the Kenya central bank will do, was for a mere 25 bps cut. We expect the credit carry traders out of Niarobi to scramble for yield in places like Greece, now that their cost of funding has dropped by over 10%. The good news for those doing the inverse trade, and looking to trade Kenyan Eurodollar futures, or the "Kenyo-dollar" as the case may be, is that there still is a long way to go before all time lows rate lows are taken out.

• Microsoft prepares U-turn on Windows 8 (FT), Microsoft admits failure on Windows 8 (MW), After Bumpy Start, Microsoft Rethinks Windows 8 (NYT)
• China reports four more bird flu deaths, toll rises to 31 (Reuters)
• Republicans shift stance on US budget (FT)
• NYC Tallest Condo Corridor Gets New Entrant With Steinway (BBG)
• U.S. Says China's Government, Military Used Cyberespionage (WSJ)
• China rejects Pentagon charges of military espionage (Reuters)
• Bank of China Cuts Off North Korean Bank (WSJ)
• Libya defense minister quits over siege of ministries by gunmen (Reuters)
• London Recruiter Says City Job Vacancies Rose 19% (BBG)
• Colleges Cut Prices by Providing More Financial Aid (WSJ)  or, said otherwise, loans
• Jeweler agrees to plead guilty in KPMG insider-trading case (LA Times)

The euro continues to not get the memo. After days and days of attempted jawboning by Draghi and his marry FX trading men, doing all they can to push the euro down, cutting interest rates and even threatening to use the nuclear option and push the deposit rate into the red, someone continues to buy EURs (coughjapancough) or, worse, generate major short squeezes such as during today's event deficient trading session, when after France reported a miss in both its manufacturing and industrial production numbers (-1.0% and -0.9%, on expectations of -0.5% and -0.3%, from priors of 0.8% and 0.7%) did absolutely nothing for the EUR pairs, it was up to Germany to put an end to the party, and announce March factory orders which beat expectations of a -0.5% solidly, and remained unchanged at 2.2%, the same as in February. And since the current regime is one in which Germany is happy and beggaring its neighbors's exports (France) with a stronger EUR, Merkel will be delighted with the outcome while all other European exporters will once again come back to Draghi and demand more jawboning, which they will certainly get. Expect more headlines out of the ECB cautioning that the EUR is still too high.

An overview of this week's drivers.

A look at the price action in the foreign exchange market and the technical forces in the week ahead.