Pre-Market Update

Overnight we got part of what we expect, whether it holds in early trade is more, "Take it as it comes", but USD/JPY again was the catalyst...

 USD/JPY since the open of futures/FX this week and overnight on a 5 min chart; briefly held 95.

This sent the Nikkei higher by +2.73% and above the psychological whole number of $13k.

This in turn sent ES higher overnight as Europe (most of it) also got as boost on low volume, likely short covering...

ES 1 min with some recent consolidation.


The Empire F_E_D Indes was out this morning, the headline number beating at an incredible +7.84% vs last of -1.43% and consensus of 0.00%, how the headline number beat with all of the other sub-indicies coming in horribly is beyond me, well not really, but you know what I mean.

For example...

New Orders down, Shipments down, Unfilled Orders down, Delivery Time down, Inventories down, Number of Employees down, Avg Workweek down, Labor market conditions worsened, with the index for number of employees dropping to zero and the average workweek index retreating ten points to -11.3.

F_E_D mouthpiece from the WSJ, Hilsenrath writes that if the Fed maintains confidence in their economic forecasts (If and how these forecasts change) it could send an important near term signal about the Fed’s near term intentions; it could signal they think they're on track to begin pulling back on QE later this year.

As for hints in the early going, I look to the JPY and USD separately and find there's not a huge edge like the 15 min charts from last night that firmly suggest a nice short squeeze early this week, they are on the positive side each* (for the USD/JPY) to move higher, which is positive for the markets, but look a little soft right now, I'd expect some volatility in early trade as we always see Monday mornings.