Today's Key Points

- Mixed session in Asian equity markets, commodity stocks doing well, financials poorly.
- Currency markets range-bound, but scandies remain strong against the Euro.
- No major events today. US markets are closed due to Presidents day.

Markets Overnight

There have been no major events over the weekend. The US stock market closed more or less unchanged on Friday, where financial shares received a modest boost based on speculation that Bear Stearns was to be bought out, but there was no indication of the bidder. Monoliners and the municipal bond market is still a posi-tive factor for the front end of the US yield curve, where 2yr yields fell a few bp on Friday, and is now trading at 1.91%.

It has been a mixed session in the Asian stock markets, with financial stocks in particular in negative territory this morning on the back of comments from ANZ, that its results will be hurt significantly from the sub-prime crisis in the US. However, commodity stocks are doing better, and the Nikkei is up by some 0.1% this morning.

Global currency markets. There have been limited movements in major currencies in Asian trade. The Scandi currencies have remained strong against the Euro this morning. EURSEK is trading just below the 930-level, while EUR/NOK is trading at the 790-level.

FX markets might take a breather on President's day but the trading volumes below usual levels also has the potential to cause sharp movments. The problems currently surrounding Northern Rock Plc is not good for the pound while the high oil price supports the Norwegian krone. These issues and relative monetary cycles con-vince us that a short GBP/NOK positions still have good value down to 10.40. The Australian dollar is still a favourite to many and wee see good value here as well. To hedge against regional risk we therefore recom-mend buying AUD/NZD up to 1.18.

Global Daily

There are no interesting data from Euroland on the agenda today, and the US is closed due to Presidents Day. At the same time, there are no strong spillover effects from late US trade Friday or Asian trade this morning. This all points to a rather dull day with little movement on interest rate markets. So unless equities or risk aversion come out to play, it should be a quite day.

The key events this week is the PMI's from Euroland and the Fed minutes from the US. Following the large fall in service-PMI last month, it will be interesting to see how big the spillover to manufacturing PMI is, and if a rebound is on the cards. As everybody probably knows the Fed cut its key lending rate by 125bp during eight days in January. The minutes will give the reason why, promising a very interesting read.

Danske Bank

Posted in: Forex