Morning Update – 02/06/16 – by Arjun Lakhanpal

Morning all.. Wall St had a very subdued start to the month closing more or less unchanged in a quiet session. Asia saw Japan start off on the back foot and it stayed there closing down 2.25% with China unchanged. This was partly due to Abe not announcing any stimulus in his press conference and a higher JPY which saw USDJPY trade down to 108.83. The second delay to the sales tax this time may have increased investors’ concerns about economic uncertainties and skepticism about Abenomics and possibly Abe’s future. Many are pointing to the fact that the proposed two-and-a-half year delay to the introduction of a 10 percent tax hike creates less of a need for further stimulus from the Bank of Japan at their mid-June meeting. But this had arguably already been priced into the currency over the past week. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.89 percent, led by losses in its energy and financial subindexes which were 0.96 percent and 1.26 percent lower respectively and AUD a little lower even with a fall in the trade deficit but Australia’s retail sales rose 0.2 percent in April from the previous month, compared with economists’ expectations for a 0.3 percent increase. EUR rallied above 1.12 but has since run into selling as Europe walks in as we have the ECB meeting today. This morning we get Spanish Unemployment, UK Construction PMI, EU PPI and of course the ECB meeting and OPEC gaathering.. Good luck…