Morning Update – 24/05/16 – by Arjun Lakhanpal

Morning all.. A rather quiet session again on Wall St which saw the S&P close down just 0.21% as dealers appear to be on hold as few directional signals seen since the last set of data. Asia was also quiet but weaker with the Nikkei closing down 1% with HK and China lower also. AUD was under pressure as commodities and oil fell again. Also RBA’s Stevens said inflation is very low; it is too low & technically below our target; inflation targting is not rigid & does not call for a knee-jerk response; AUD is doing what you would expect at the moment; does not see need for different inflation target.. Light bids seen at .7180 but stops building below; traders in Asia suggest. Quite a bit of chatter over this WSJ Sources piece: minutes of closed-door meetings suggest Chinese leaders have lost interest in making Yuan more mkt-based! The JPY rallied slightly as the Nikkei fell but data was poor with figures from the Japanese finance ministry on Monday showing exports in the country for April dropped 10.1 percent on-year in April, while imports dropped 23 percent on-year. EUR was quiet, WTI down 0.6% and gold down $3.00.. This morning we get French confidence data, Swedish Unemployment, UK Public sector borrowing and German ZEW data.. Good luck.