Morning Update – 03/02/2017 – by Arjun Lakhanpal

Morning all.. Wall St had another very quiet session as we wait for the NFP data from the US today, closing more or less unchanged on the day. Surprisingly the Nikkei was also very quiet considering the rally in the USDJPY after the BoJ intervened in the JGB market to push yields back down. One would have expected a bounce in Nikkei on that but again the threat from the US data weighing on sentiment. The BoJ was quite aggressive; BoJ: initially offered to buy ¥450bn JGBs in 5-10y bucket (above¥410bn expected); later bought ¥723.9bn from financial institutions in special unlimited amount fixed rate purchase; offered to buy bmk 10y JGB at yield of 0.11%; aimed at keeping 10y yield target around 0%. BoJ Kuroda: BoJ policy not aimed at financing Govt; appropriate to proceed with current powerful monetary easing as Japan is half way to achieving px target. The dollar gained against most g10 currencies and EUR moved away from the highs. Bundesbank Chief Economist: sees no reason to reduce monetary stimulus measures now given core inflation still far below the ECB target. Some profit taking expected on popular positions.. BoE’s Broadbent (BBC Radio5): UK consumers face more challenging environment in 2017; UK economy will be helped by higher confidence in markets & US businesses after Trump victory; defends BoE August forecasts saying they reflected consumer post-Brexit pessimism.. China Caixin final Jan Mfg PMI: 51.0 vs 51.8 cons; new export order rose at fastest pace since Sept ‘14 -PBOC fixed Yuan firmer at 6.8556 per USD.. Most now waiting for the US NFP and unemployment data later but this morning we do get Services PMI from Sweden, Spain, Italy, France Germany and the UK.. We also have Swedish IP, German PPI and Norway unemployment.. Good luck..