Volatility shock fades, India CPI on deck

A look at the day ahead in Asian and global markets

By Jamie McGeever, Columnist, Global Finance & Markets

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A week is not just a long time in politics. 

Seven days ago a huge unwind in the yen carry trade and selloff in megacap U.S. tech triggered a wave of volatility that sent global markets reeling and investors running for the safety of U.S. Treasuries.

As the new trading week gets underway in Asia on Monday, that seems a long time ago – many assets have recovered much of these losses, volatility has subsided, and traders have heavily scaled back their rate cut expectations.

The question now is whether that momentum can be sustained. Some investors will seize upon lower equity volatility to push up risky assets again; others will be wary of potential aftershocks in any corner of the market, especially in mid-August when liquidity is much thinner than usual.

Graphics are produced by Reuters.

Monday’s Asian calendar is light. Indian consumer price inflation is the main event, leaving markets at the mercy of global forces. 

If that’s the case, Monday should be relatively calm. Wall Street rose on Friday, meaning the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended last week essentially flat. Treasury yields fell on Friday but registered their biggest weekly rise in months.

Stronger-than-expected U.S. economic data suggesting recession fears are overblown, and a couple of poorly-received U.S. debt auctions, pushed yields higher. No bad thing, perhaps, if you think the previous week’s plunge was excessive.

Asian markets’ rebound last week was pretty impressive. After the Nikkei registered its second biggest fall on record and its third largest ever rise in the space of 24 hours, the index ended the week down only 2.5%.

Other benchmark indices fared even better – the MSCI Asia ex-Japan and MSCI World index both ended flat, and the MSCI Emerging Market index rose 0.2%.

In currencies, U.S. futures market data on Friday showed that hedge funds slashed their net short yen position in the week to Aug. 6 by 62,000 contracts. That is the biggest yen-bullish weekly swing since the Fukushima disaster in February 2011, and third biggest since comparable data started in 1986.

If this is representative of the broader FX market, the short yen ‘carry trade’ has been mostly wiped out. Do traders begin shorting the yen and putting on carry trades again, or not?

Indian inflation is the main data point in Asia and comes after the Reserve Bank of India last week kept its key interest rate unchanged at 6.50%, dismissing the market turbulence and focusing on getting inflation down to its 4% medium term target.

The consensus in a Reuters poll is for annual consumer inflation in July to fall to 3.65% from 5.08% in June. That would be the first time in five years below the RBI’s medium-term target.

Graphics are produced by Reuters.

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