EUR 9.38 For Business Accounts Only

The Morning Track singles-day-3

- The Morning Track – Singles Day by Bob Savage
http://track.com/articles/the-morning-track-singles-day-3/

This is the day formerly known as Veterans Day – one of Remembrance for the dead that gave their lives in the War to end all Wars. The history post that allied victory has been soured by the inflation sparked by war reparations and the social impact of the peace in driving the rise of NAZI Germany. Today is different, with the Chinese Alibaba e-commerce giant starting in 2009 a day for “singles” to buy themselves goods and feel better. Perhaps this rush to materialism wins over the grim reminder that the First World War was followed by the Second and many continue to fear a Third. In the first 16 hours today – on line sales in China are over $13.7bn – heralding the biggest retail event of the year. In CNY terms, it took less than 7 minutes to get to 10bn – something that took 12.28 minutes last year. This is all-important as the future of Sino-US relations is on hold as it waits for the new Trump trade policy. The Bilateral Investment Treaty was all ready
to go but for the Obama signature. The fear of protectionism has swept over Asian markets today as the reality of a US looking less global hits. CNY broke 6.82 and M2 was higher even with sharply lower houses sales. But the bellwether for EM pain remains MXN which breaks 21 today – with market now waiting for Sunday evenings 60 Minutes Trump interview to see if he can continue to act Presidential. As for news overnight, the Bank of Korea left rates unchanged at 1.25% - as expected – but the KRW hit June lows along with rest of the region. The Japan FinMin Aso noted that the 3.2% move in JPY lower this week was abnormal. Other nations just intervened to hold their currencies in check. This puts the focus back on safe-havens with CHF and even GBP beating the EUR. EUR/EM trades are in play and the EUR risk is below 1.0770 with 1.0850 giving way.