Archives of “January 2021” month

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UK announces further support for businesses to cushion blow from virus crisis

  
  Analysis

Announcement by UK finance minister, Rishi Sunak

  • One-off top up grants for retail, hospitality, businesses up to £9,000 per property
  • A £594 million discretionary fund set up to support other impacted businesses
  • New lockdown grants to total £4.6 billion
This comes after Boris Johnson announced a national lockdown in the UK over the next seven weeks starting from today, which will be reviewed on 15 February next.
The pound is still feeling the heat from all the pessimism as of late, with cable seen down slightly to 1.3555-60 levels currently. Meanwhile, EUR/GBP is up to 0.9050 as buyers threaten a push above its 100-day moving average @ 0.9034.

Nikkei 225 closes lower by 0.37% at 27,158.63

  
  Analysis

A mixed bag in Asian trading today

Nikkei 05-01
Japanese stocks end the day lower but Asian equities are seeing a slight lift towards the closing stages today, after tracking the losses in Wall St overnight earlier.

 

The Hang Seng is up 0.4% while the Shanghai Composite is up 0.5% currently, trading closer to the highs as we approach the latter stages of the day.
Elsewhere, US futures are keeping calmer after the retreat yesterday with S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures seen closer to flat levels at the moment.
In the currencies space, the dollar held up somewhat after a bit of an early decline in Asia and Europe yesterday but finds itself vulnerable once again in trading today.

For the oil traders – the OPEC+ meeting resumes again from 1430GMT

  
Analysis, Crude

The Monday meeting dragged on until it was clear there would be no conclusion, so it is to continue Tuesday.

Adam had the heads up earlier:
  • OPEC to extend meeting until tomorrow – will start at 15:30 Vienna time.
The long story short is the two big players:
  • Saudi Arabia argued against more output citing demand drop from new lockdowns
  • Russia led calls for higher production, citing recovering demand

US Treasury to allow US banks to use blockchain settlement

  
  Analysis

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is the federal banking regulator and an independent bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury.

Issued an interpretative note on January 4:
  • Federally regulated banks can use stablecoins to conduct payments, other activities
  • could participate in blockchain networks – can participate as nodes on a blockchain and store or validate payments
The note from the OCC is here, link for more detail.,
BTC update, rallying since this news hit a couple of hours ago:
The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is the federal banking regulator and an independent bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury.

PBOC sets the USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.4760 (vs. Monday at 6.5408)

  
  Analysis

People’s Bank of China set the onshore yuan mid-rate for the trading session ahead.

No let-up from the central bank in China in confirming the strength of the yuan. Huge move stronger, six and a half big figures! (648 points)

Reuters estimate from their survey was 6.4978, Bloomberg 6.4761

PBOC inject 10bn yuan through 7-day RRs in open market operations

  • 140bn mature today
  • thus a net drain of 130bn
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