Market snapshot, theatre of war

Since the Russian army’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24th February most equity markets, government and corporate bond yields, commodity prices (energy, metals and agriculture), CDS spreads and major currencies have recorded significant intra-day volatility and outsized daily moves. Moreover, for all the “noise”, the current geopolitical crisis has accentuated multi-week trends in a number of financial market and economic

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FX round-up – Calm before the next storm

The spike in US Treasury yield volatility last week, following the release of gangbuster US CPI-inflation data for October, partly fed through to other asset classes. However, volatility in US asset prices, including Treasuries , the US Dollar and S&P 500, has since subsided while global FX volatility is still low in absolute and historical terms. Depressed volatility in FX

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Vaccination and currency immunity

In the past couple of months governments in Asia-Pacific have materially accelerated the administration of Covid-19 vaccines. But because of low starting points, vaccination rates remain low compared to the EU, US and UK and even a number EM economies (including Turkey). The exceptions are Korea, Malaysia and Japan which have now administered a similar number of doses per capita

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Low global FX vol: maturity or complacency?

Global FX volatility – as measured by the 5-day Standard Deviation (SD) in the daily percentage change in the spot (closing) price of a turnover-weighted basket of 32 major currency pairs against the US Dollar – remains depressed by historical standards. While global FX volatility rose slightly on 11th August to about 0.32 SD following the release of US CPI-inflation

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Sitting on range-trade fence: complacent comfort

The past week has seen a short-lived flurry of market price action, with daily volatility in the US Dollar and equities edging higher on 30th April and again on 4th May. However, volatility overall has remained subdued, particularly in the benchmark US 10-year Treasury yield. Moreover, the Dollar NEER and US 10-year yields – increasingly a bellwether for financial markets

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Something has got to give

The Federal Reserve has in the past six weeks diligently stuck to its “patience until substantial further progress is seen” monetary policy mantra. Its “reward” has been range-bound US Treasury yields, a slowly depreciating Dollar and a metronomic rise in US equity indices, with all three financial markets exhibiting only modest volatility. Since 19th April the Dollar NEER has depreciated

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Crunch time for Singapore Dollar and Renminbi

We estimate that the USD-value of central bank FX reserves – adjusted for currency-valuation effects – in China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand rose by about $342bn (1.5% of GDP) between end-March 2020 and end-February 2021 (see Non-Japan Asia: NEERs and FX intervention, 26th March 2021). The increase, which ranged from 0.3% of GDP in China

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Non-Japan Asia: NEERs and FX intervention

Non-Japan Asian (NJA) central banks’ foreign currency (FX) reserves have gradually increased since end-March 2020, arguably the peak in global risk aversion. We estimate that the aggregate US Dollar-value of FX reserves in China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand increased by about $514bn or 10% in the eleven months to end-February 2021 to about $5.66 trillion.

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