The weekend saw a seeming rebellion against the Russian government, or at least the military, by the private Wagner Group, which has been fighting for Russia in large numbers in Ukraine.
The group declared a march on Moscow and occupied two Russian cities on the way before retreating when only a few hundred miles from Moscow. The revolt was called off on Saturday evening, with the leader of the Wagner Group going into exile in Belarus and the Russian military beginning work on absorbing the Wagner Group. Markets seem to have reacted very calmly to these developments.
Japan’s main Forex “diplomat,” Masato Kanda, said today that the relevant authorities will have a response to any excessive moves in the currency market, calling recent depreciations in the Yen “rapid.” This reflects increasing concern that Yen’s strong fall will negatively affect Japan’s strongly recovering economy.
We are seeing the Japanese Yen fall to multi-year lows against several currencies, and trend traders will note that Japan often talks tough over a weakening Yen but frequently does nothing to stop it. However, trend traders will be wary of the Bank of Japan’s intervention to prop up the Yen, although this would likely be very difficult to achieve.
Bitcoin advanced strongly last week to a new 1-year high price, but there are initial signs that the key resistance level at $30,534 is holding.
Friday saw mostly worse-than-expected PMI data in services and manufacturing in the UK, Germany, and France, while US Services performed better than expected. This emphasizes the relative strength of the US economy.
No high-impact data releases are scheduled today, so it will likely be a very quiet Monday in the markets.
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